Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 21361

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'In his [Johnson's] manuscript diary of this year, there is the following entry: "Nov. 27. Advent Sunday. I considered that this day, being the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was a proper time for a new course of life. I began to read the Greek Testament regularly at 160 verses every Sunday. This day I began the Acts. In this week I read Virgil's 'Pastorals'. I learned to repeat the 'Pollio' and 'Gallus'. I read carelessly the first 'Georgick'." Such evidences of his unceasing ardour, both for "divine and human lore," when advanced into his sixty-fifty year, and notwithstanding his many disturbances from disease, must make us at once honour his spirit, and lament that it should be so grievously clogged by its material tegument. It is remarkable, that he was very fond of the precision which calculation produces. Thus we find in one of his manuscript diaries, "12 pages in 4to Gr. Test, and 30 pages in Beza's folio, comprize the whole in 10 days".'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Between 20 Nov 1774 and 27 Nov 1774
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: Virgil
Title: 1st Georgic
Genre: Classics, Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 21361  
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: 570-71
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: James Boswell, R.W. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson (Oxford, 1980), p. 570-71, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=21361, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Originally published 1791. Pollio and Gallus feature in this poem.

 

 

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