BOSWELL AND JOHNSON

Abstract

Since Boswell's papers were discovered in Malahide Castle and other places in the second quarter of this century, greater interest has been revived in Boswell as a man and as a writer. The popular edition of his London Journal, 1762-1763 edited by Frederick A. Pottle, Yale University, was first published in 1950, followed by Boswell in Holland, 1763-1764 (1951), Portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1952), and Boswell on the Grand Tour; Germany and Switzerland; 1764 (1953). Here, in this essay, the writer dwells mostly on Boswell as seen in his London Journal. He views Boswell from two points ; the one is the Boswell drawn there by himself, that is, Boswell as a man, and the other is the Boswell drawing himself, that is, Boswell as a writer. Boswell as a man is indeed "a coxcomb, and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous," as bitterly condemned by Macauley, but at the same time he is always trying, though mostly in vain, to make himself a better and more solid man. He is like Hamlet, suffering from contradictory elements in his character. Viewing him as such, we cannot help feeling that Boswell is another, though a little exaggerated, figure of ourselves. Then the interest in Boswell as a writer. Why did he expose himself in a manner so cruelly objective? His main object of writing his Journal was, as is stated in his Introduction, to improve his character by showing to himself what he really is. But he appears to have forgotten that moral object as he writes on. Well then, did he intend to make his Journal a literary work to be published later? No. Otherwise he would not have omitted the important topic of Peggy Doig, the mother of his little boy, which he must know would make the Journal more interesting to the general reader. The final answer to the above question, then, would be that he had an instinctive desire to write down whatever experiences he had had, and that he felt great interest in drawing them as objectively as possible. What well proves that natural inclination of his is "Dialogues at Child's" inserted here and there in his Journal. The next question is why his Life of Johnson still remains one of the few best biographies in the world. In the Life the reader's interest turns wholly to Johnson as a great moralist and excellent conversationist. Naturally in this work Boswell hides himself behind Johnson, but we must not forget that Johnson's witty, amusing conversations were copied by none but Boswell, and that he is always playing a skilful planner and producer, who contrives to put Johnson in the most varied possible situations and make him act and express his opinions accordingly. So far as the Life is concerned, therefore, we cannot think of Johnson without appreciating Boswell's unique ability as a biographer. If we want to know Johnson-without-Boswell, we must attend Professor Johnson's class, where he gives us interesting and instructive lectures on the Lives of the English Poets. But now, in this essay, we have to quit here, hoping to get another chance to attend his class.