Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 21944

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'He begged of General Paoli to repeat one of the introductory stanzas of the first book of Tasso's "Jerusalem", which he did, and then Johnson found fault with the simile of sweetening the edges of a cup for a child, being transferred from Lucretius into an epick poem. The General said he did not imagine Homer's poetry was so ancient as is supposed, because he ascribes to a Greek colony circumstances of refinement not found in Greece itself at a later period, when Thucydides wrote. JOHNSON. "I recollect but one passage quoted by Thucydides from Homer, which is not to be found in our copies of Homer's works; I am for the antiquity of Homer, and think that a Grecian colony, by being nearer Persia, might be more refined than the mother country.".'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Until: 29 Apr 1778
Country: n/a
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
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:Filippo Antonio Pasquale di Paoli
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 6 Apr 1725
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: General
Religion: n/a
Country of origin: Corsican Republic
Country of experience: n/a
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Thucydides
Title: History of the Peloponnesian War,
Genre: Classics, History
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 21944  
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: 977
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: James Boswell, R.W. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson (Oxford, 1980), p. 977, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=21944, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Originally published 1791. This is probably the text in question

 

 

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