| Unit name | Samuel Johnson |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ENGL29023 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Mason |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of English |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit examines Samuel Johnson's more substantial works, more or less in chronological order, and revisits some of the books he discussed, including the plays of Shakespeare. Attention is paid to his influence on writing by women (including Charlotte Lennox and Jane Austen) and by men (including Oliver Goldsmith and George Crabbe), and to the relationship between Johnson the writer and Johnson as described by others (including James Boswell, Anna Seward, Hester Thrale and Fanny Burney). The central consideration, however, is Johnson as a writer and as a thinker about writing, including the material circumstances of writing.
Aims:
This course is designed to acquaint students with a significant part of the range of Johnsons writing in various forms: the tale, satire, translation, imitation, biography, the essay, lexicography, textual editing, explanatory elucidation, travel writing, and literary-critical debate.
On successful completion of this course students will be able to: show a wide knowledge of the work of a consequential eighteenth-century thinker and writer, and of some of his literary, intellectual, cultural, social and political contexts; read Johnsons writings with understanding and precision; prepare coherent written arguments, supported by appropriate evidence and analysis: give presentations as an individual and as part of a group; use a wide variety of printed and on-line information and sources of relevance to this area of study.
1 x 2 hour seminar per week in one teaching block, plus 1-to-1 discussion in consultation hours where desired.
Samuel Johnson:
