September 18 is the birthday of English author and literary polymath Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr. Johnson, who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. He was the subject of the single most famous biography in English literature, James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), in which he was portrayed as a complex, heroic figure who won moral wisdom through constant struggle with despair. In 1755 Johnson published his monumental Dictionary of the English Language, one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, which had strong influence on the English we speak today. It was the standard dictionary in Britain until the Oxford English Dictionary was completed in the 1890s.
OMG Boswell was the reason I became an ENGLISH major in college
ReplyDelete