Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 20920

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'On Tuesday the 5th of July, I again visited Johnson. He told me he had looked into the poems of a pretty voluminous writer, Mr. (now Dr.) John Ogilvie, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, which had lately come out, but could find no thinking in them. Boswell. "Is there not imagination in them, Sir?" Johnson. "Why, Sir, there is in them what [italics] was [end italics] imagination, but it is no more imagination in [italics] him [end italics] than sound is sound in the echo. And his diction too is not his own. We have long ago seen [italics] white-robed innocence [end italics] and [italics] flower-bespangled meads[end italics]".'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Until: 5 Jul 1763
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: London
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Samuel Johnson
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 18 Sep 1709
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: writer
Religion: Anglican
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: John Ogilvie
Title: [poems]
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 20920  
Source - Print  
  Author: James Boswell
  Editor: R.W. Chapman
  Title: Life of Johnson
  Place of Publication: Oxford
  Date of Publication: 1980
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 298
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: James Boswell, R.W. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson (Oxford, 1980), p. 298, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=20920, accessed: 26 April 2024

Additional comments:

Originally published 1791.

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)