Samuel Johnson's "general Nature": Tradition and Transition in Eighteenth-century DiscourseUniversity of Delaware Press, 1999 - 168 pages This study illuminates the importance and meaning of the term author in eighteenth-century discourse from the perspective of its prominent usage by Samuel Johnson. It explains Johnson's employment of nature in his periodical essays, his qualified endorsement of the new science, and his commendation of Shakespeare's drama and other literary works on the basis of their just representation of general nature. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Preface | 11 |
Classical Nature | 21 |
Medieval Nature | 36 |
Nature in EighteenthCentury Discourse | 49 |
Nature and Value in the Rambler Idler and Adventurer | 71 |
Johnson on the Experimental Philosophy | 88 |
Representation Imagination and Nature in Johnsons Literary Criticism | 108 |
Johnson and EighteenthCentury Reductionism | 130 |
Notes | 138 |
156 | |
163 | |
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Alan of Lille Alexander Pope Aquinas Aristotelian Aristotle assertion Boerhaave Boerhaave's Boyle Boyle's Callicles century Christian cited parenthetically Clarendon Press classical nature complexity conception of nature consists constitutes context creation Cudworth defined definition deism Descartes divine edition eighteenth eighteenth-century discourse eighteenth-century nature emphasized empiricism endorsement Epicurus epistemological Essay evil exemplified existence explanation fiction further citations further quotations genius Hume Hume's ideas Idler images imagination implies important inherent intellectual interpretation Jenyns Jenyns's John Johnson's commendation Johnson's conception Johnson's criticism Johnson's nature knowledge laws literary Malebranche material meaning medieval metaphysical nature mind moral realism natural philosophy nature's Newton Oxford philosophical phusis physical Plato poet poetry Pope Pope's Preface presumption principles Rambler rational reality reason reductionism relation representation represented Samuel Johnson scientific Shakespeare skepticism Stoic Summa theologica supplied parenthetically teleological theological things Thomist tion tradition truth ture ultimate University Press virtue York