Boswell : citizen of the world, man of letters / Irma S. Lustig, editor.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

pt. 1. Boswell and the Enlightenment: Boswell's travels through the German, Swiss, and French Enlightenment / Marlies K. Danziger -- Boswell's response to the European landscape / Peter F. Perreten -- "Something that put me in mind of my father": Boswell and Lord Kames / Richard B. Sher -- James Boswell, Henry Dundas, and enlightened politics / Michael Fry -- Politics in the Boswell-Temple correspondence / Thomas Crawford -- Master of Ulubrae: Boswell as enlightened laird / John Strawhorn -- pt. 2. The life of Johnson: Rhetoric and runts: Boswell's artistry / Carey McIntosh -- "Casts a kind of glory round it": metaphor and The life of Johnson / William P. Yarrow -- "Over him we hang vibrating": uncertainty in The life of Johnson / Isobel Grundy -- Pilgrimage and autonomy: the visit to Ashbourne / John B. Radner -- "My dear enemy": Margaret Montgomerie Boswell in The life of Johnson / Irma S. Lustig -- Appendix: Boswell's meetings with Johnson, a new count / Hitoshi Suwabe.

These eleven original essays by well-known eighteenth-century scholars, five of them editors of James Boswell's journal or letters, commemorate the bicentenary of Boswell's death on May 19, 1795. The volume illuminates both the life and the work of one of the important literary figures of the age and contributes significantly to the scholarship on this rich period. In the introduction Irma S. Lustig sets the tone for the volume. She reveals that the essays examining Boswell as "Citizen of the World" are deliberately paired with those that analyze his artistic skills, to emphasize that "Boswell's sophistication as a writer is inseparable from his cosmopolitanism."

The essays in Part I focus on the relationship of the Enlightenment, at home and abroad, to Boswell's personal development. Marlies K. Danziger restores to significant life the continental philosophers and theologians Boswell consulted in his search for religious certainty. Peter Perreten examines Boswell's enraptured study of Italian antiquity and his responses to the European landscape. Richard B. Sher and Perreten document the personal and aesthetic influence of Henry Home, Lord Kames, Scottish jurist and leading Enlightenment figure, on Boswell. Michael Fry discusses Boswell's relationship with Henry Dundas, political manager for Scotland, and Thomas Crawford examines Boswell's long-standing interest in the volatile political issues of the period, including the French Revolution, through his correspondence with William Johnson Temple.

In evaluating Boswell's performance as Laird of Auchinleck, John Strawhorn documents his efforts to improve the estate by use of new agricultural methods. The essays in Part II study aspects of Boswell's artistry in Life of Johnson, the magnum opus that set a standard for biography. Carey McIntosh examines Boswell's use of rhetoric, and William P. Yarrow offers a close scrutiny of metaphor. Isobel Grundy invokes Virginia Woolf in demonstrating Boswell's acceptance of uncertainty as a biographer. John B. Radner reveals Boswell's self-assertive strategies in his visit with Johnson at Ashbourne in September 1777, and, finally, Lustig examines as a "subplot" of the biography Johnson's patient efforts to win the friendship of Margaret Montgomerie Boswell. An appendix by Hitoshi Suwabe serves scholars by providing the most exact account to date of Boswell's meetings with Johnson

Use copy Restrictions unspecified star MiAaHDL

Electronic reproduction. [Place of publication not identified] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. MiAaHDL

Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. MiAaHDL

http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212

digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL

Print version record.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide