Spence, and Helen B. Editor of the Harvard Advocate, 1909-1910. Member of the editorial boards of New English Weekly, Inventario, Christian News-Letter, and other periodicals. Eliot Aunt Helen Conversation Galante Cousin Nancy More poems by T. Eliot back to top More poems by T. Eliot (14 poems) La Figlia che Piange Portrait of a Lady Preludes Rhapsody on a Windy Night Sweeney among the Nightingales The Boston Evening Transcript The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The Waste Land Whispers of Immortality back to top back to top back to top back to top back to top Biography When T. His great Dictionary of 1755, a landmark in human achievement, has this to say regarding "essay" as a noun:1. My essays , of all my other works, have been most current. Yet modestly he does his work survey, And calls his finish'd poem an essay. He wrote this but as an essay , or taste of my virtue. Repetitions wear us into a liking of what possibly, in the first essay , displeased us. Translating the first of Homer's Iliads, I intended as an essay to the whole work. Within a culture that values success (over endeavor), regularity and method (over loose sallies), accomplishment (over trials), and the final (over the initial), the essay would appear always to be an inferior genre, at least as it is depicted in these definitions. The second definition in particular distinguishes the essay from more finished kinds of writing, and the illustration indicates how a writer might depreciate another kind of work by calling it an essay. At the same time, however, Johnson's definitions and illustrations also suggest the elusive nature of what an essay is: almost any piece of writing would fit the parameters of the first and third definitions, as an "attempt" or "experiment. Johnson's own career also undermines any sense that the essay is a lowly or indeterminate genre. Prior to the Rambler , which ran from 1750 to 1752, Johnson was a promising but rather minor figure. After the Rambler 's 208 biweekly essays had appeared (almost entirely by Johnson), he was a major figure. In 1752 Charlotte Lennox was not alone in determining that "the Author of the Rambler" was "the greatest Genius in the present Age," as she puts it in the penultimate chapter of The Female Quixote. Johnson was, for the rest of his life, "the Rambler" (sometimes even "Ramblin' Sam"). The famous Nollekens bust of Johnson has written on its base, "RAMBLER. By 1764, the Biographia Dramatica, reflecting a widespread sentiment, could refer to Johnson as "no less the glory of the present age and nation, than he will be the admiration of all succeeding ones. Johnson's massive reputation, in other words, was substantially the result of his work as an essayist. Click here to order! Or visit our site >> research papers in economics More info about: free dissertation help custom research paper service examples of character analysis essays teaching essay writing western civilization essay essay my best friend college essay topic essay history topics
