Page 90 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

Unit 11: The Age of Johnson-The Decline of Neoclassicism (Devotional Verse, Popularity of Periodical Essays)

Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, and Other Notes

In the second half of the eighteenth century the periodical essay showed a tendency to cease as an
independent publication and to get incorporated into the newspaper as just another feature. The
series of about a hundred papers of Dr. Johnson, called The Idler, for example, was contributed to
newspaper, The Universal Chronicler, and appeared between April 15, 1758 and April 5, 1760.
These papers are lighter and shorter than those published in the periodical paper The Rambler.
The Rambler appeared twice a week, between March 20, 1750 and March 14,1752, and ran to 208
numbers. Dr. Johnson as a periodical essayist was much more serious in purpose than Steele and
Addison had been. His lack of humour and unrelived gravity coupled with his ponderous English
make his Rambler papers quite heavy reading. The lack of popularity of The Rambler can easily be
ascribed to this very fact.
Among the papers that followed The Rambler may be mentioned Edward Moore’s World (209
numbers) and the novelist Henry Mackenzie’s Mirror and The Lounger. A significant development
was the creation of the “magazine” or what we call “digest” today. It was an anthology of the
interesting material which had already appeared in recent newspapers orpenodicals. The first
magazine was Edward Cave’s monthly, The Gentleman’s Magazine, founded i,. 1731. The vogue of
the magazine caught on and many magazines including The magazines of Magazines (1750-51),
appeared and disappeared. Along with the magazine may be mentioned the initiation of the
critical review devoted to the criticism of books. The first such periodical was Ralph Griffith’s
Monthly Review.

In the end, let us consider the work of Oliver Goldsmith who from 1757 to 1772 contributed to no
fewer than ten periodicals, including The Monthly Review. His own Bee (1759) ran to only eight
weekly numbers. The Citizen of the World (1762)—Goldsmith his best work—is a collection of
essays which originally appeared in The Public Ledger as “Chinese Letters” (1760-61). Goldsmith’s
essays are rich in human details, a quivering sentimentalism, and candidness of spirit. His prose
style is, likewise, quite attractive; he avoids bitterness, coarseness, pedantry, and stiff wit. His
style, in the words of George Sherburn, “lacks the boldness of the aristocratic manner, and it
escapes the tendency of his generation to follow Johnson into excessive heaviness of diction and
balanced formality of sentence structure...It is precisely for this lack of formality and for his
graceful and sensitive ease, fluency, and vividness that we value his style.”

11.4 Summary
As has already been pointed out, the Age of Johnson in English poetry is an age of transi-
tion and experiment which ultimately led to the Romantic Revival.
William Cowper (1731-1800), who lived a tortured life and was driven to the verge of
madness, had a genial and kind soul.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the literary dictator of his age, though he was not its
greatest writer.
Burke (1729-1797) was the most important member of Johnson’s circle. He was a member
of the Parliament for thirty years and as such he made his mark as the most forceful and
effective orator of his times.
The periodical essay and the novel are the two important gifts of “our excellent and
indispensable eighteenth century” to English literature.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the periodical essay showed a tendency to cease
as an independent publication and to get incorporated into the newspaper as just another
feature. The series of about a hundred papers of Dr. Johnson, called The Idler.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 83