Samuel Johnson stands as one of the most imposing and fascinating figures in the history of English literature, a man whose physical bulk was matched only by the magnitude of his intellectual achievements and the breadth of his influence on the language itself. Born on September 18, 1709, in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and dying in London on December 13, 1784, Johnson's seventy-five years encompassed a journey from pro…
“The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Devotional Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Despair
Tobias George Smollett, baptized on 19 March 1721 and generally believed to have been born shortly before that date, was one of the most forceful, combative, and variously gifted writers of eighteenth-century Britain. He died on 17 September 1771, only about fifty years old, yet in that compressed lifetime he became a surgeon, naval observer, playwright, poet, translator, journalist, editor, political polemicist, his…
“Facts are stubborn things.”
Neighbourhood:
Enlightenment Poets, Satirical Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Joy, Tenderness
