Samuel Johnson (1) (1709–1784)

This novella is ostensibly a tale about an Ethiopian prince, Rasselas, who, chafing under the boredom of the life of luxury he leads in the Happy Valley, contrives to escape with two companions, his sister Nekayeh, and a man named Imlac. In fact this is a vehicle for Johnson's exploring various philosophical ideas, in particular around the sources of and how to seek happiness in life, including who in society has or might achieve happiness and how, whether through living a good life or not, and what that means. There are some interesting pithy aphorisms arising from their conversations with each other and with other characters, including with a philosopher-astronomer who believes he has the personal power to move the sun and planets. Quite amusing and interesting.… (meer)

I am VERY SLOWLY reading all of the works of Samuel Johnson (I am surprised to find I've been reading this particular volume for two years), and once again really can't recommend the guy enough if you are a fan of British literature, pithy aphorisms, or cultural criticism. Volume nine consists of his Lives of the English Poets, originally written as introductions to printed collections of their works. This includes men I have heard of (Cowley, Milton, Dryden) and many that I had not (sorry British literature!). In each, Johnson includes biographical information, an overview of contemporary critical reception, a chronological look at their work (often including extensive quotations), and sprinkles throughout his own opinions on all the above. Johnson is truly the king of loving all over certain parts of a writer's style and work and then undercutting that with a sick burn. Like pretty much all criticism, the snarky negative stuff is a lot more fun to read, particularly if you don't know much about the 17th century writer in question. Johnson can also get quite heated in a very modern feeling way, like in this section from his piece on 17th century poet John Philips who had one of his poems published without his consent:

This poem was written for his own diversion, without any design of publication. It was communicated but to me; but soon spread and fell into the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilely mangled, by Ben Bragge; and impudently said to be corrected by the author. This grievance is now grown more epidemical; and no man now has a right to his own thoughts, or a title to his own writings. Xenophon answered the Persian, who demanded his arms: 'We have nothing now left but our arms and our valour: if we surrender the one, how shall we make use of the other?' Poets have nothing but their wits and their writings; and if they are plundered of the latter, I don't see what good the former can do them. To pirate, and publickly own it, to prefix their names to the works they steal, to own and avow the theft, I believe, was never yet heard of but in England. It will sound oddly to posterity, that, in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of the most wise, most learned, and most generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a mechanick should be better secured than that of a scholar! that the poorest manual operations should be more valued than the noblest products of the brain! that it should be felony to rob a cobbler of a pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best author of his whole subsistence! that nothing should make a man a sure title to his own writings but the stupidity of them! that the works of Dryden should meet with less encouragement than those of his own Flecknoe, or Blackmore! that Tillotson and St. George, Tom Thumb and Temple, should be set on an equal foot! This is the reason why this very paper has been so long delayed; and, while the most impudent and scandalous libels are publickly vended by the pirates, this innocent work is forced to steal abroad as if it were a libel.

Can't wait to dig VERY SLOWLY into volume 10!… (meer)

El viaje a las islas occidentales de Escocia(1775), que aquí se presenta en su primera traducción española, es la obra más personal del emblemático autor que daría nombre a una de las épocas más brillantes de las letras inglesas: la Era de Jonson. Producto del recorrido que en compañía de su fiel Boswell realiza por buena parte de Escocia, el Viaje es un testimonio fascinante e irrepetible de la gran transformación, no exenta de traumas, que las Tierras Altas escocesas estaban experimentando por la época.… (meer)