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Friday, April 22, 2005
Samuel Johnson’s Anti-Aesthetic
Samuel Johnson, on the myriad ways readers end up somewhere in between pure utility and pure aesthetic appreciation. The following quotation is essentially a catalogue of interesting misreadings:
That a writer, however zealous or eloquent, seldom works a visible effect upon cities or nations, will readily be granted. The book which is read most, is read by few, compared with those that read it not; and of those few, the greater part peruse it with dispositions that very little favour their own improvement.
It is difficult to enumerate the several motives which procure to books the honour of perusal: spite, vanity, and curiosity, hope and fear, love and hatred, every passion which incites to any other action, serves at one time or other to stimulate a reader.
Some are fond to take a celebrated volume into their hands, because they hope to distinguish their penetration, by finding faults which have escaped the publick; others eagerly buy it in the first bloom of reputation, that they may join the chorus of praise, and not lag, as Falstaff terms it, in “the reward of the fashion.”
Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge; and are no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering attentively the proportions of a temple.
Some read that they may embellish their conversation, or shine in dispute; some that they may not be detected in ignorance, or want the reputation of literary accomplishments: but the most general and prevalent reason of study is the impossibility of finding another amusement equally cheap or constant, equally independent on the hour or the weather. He that wants money to follow the chase of pleasure through her yearly circuit, and is left at home when the gay world rolls to Bath or Tunbridge; he whose gout compels him to hear from his chamber the rattle of chariots transporting happier beings to plays and assemblies, will be forced to seek in books a refuge from himself.
The author is not wholly useless, who provides innocent amusements for minds like these. There are, in the present state of things, so many more instigations to evil, than incitements to good, that he who keeps men in a neutral state, may be justly considered as a benefactor to life.
I think Johnson is being slightly ironic here, but not wholly. I especially like the part towards the end where he alludes to reading as entertainment for people who have been left behind by society heading out for vacation.
For Johnson, it seems like everyone reads functionally irrespective of intention. Even “pleasure” can be defined somewhat functionally; you enjoy something because it’s an entertaining diversion, or perhaps because it proves you are the hippest cat in the Barnes & Noble. Or because it gratifies any combination of spite, vanity, curiosity, hope, fear, love, or hatred (Samuel Johnson is a passionate man) that may have stimulated you to pull something off the shelf. The purist reader, enraptured by storytelling or the sound of the language, is missing from Johnson’s catalogue, though does not mean that she or he doesn’t nevertheless exist.
[Almost completely unrelated: Shouldn’t we be talking about Adorno at some point?]
Comments
Rather than advise Samuel Johnson to be less terse, I’d take the combination of “love” and “Some read for style” as sufficiently covering the purist reader pre-Pater.
Contra Johnson, I believe that it was Keynes who pointed out that “common sense” is often the half-remembered words of some long-dead writer. IIRC, Keynes’ example was Johnson’s contemporary, Adam Smith.
Interesting to think of Johnson reading, himself, to find out the usages of words, a massive undertaking that would wear down the will to read in a lesser man. There is something wishful in the image of the man in Bath, finding refuge in himself with a good book—although always there is death, or gout, gnawing at him somewhere. The opposite image is of the lexicographer, taking that same book as merely another piece of evidence for his task. As Johnson says at the beginning of the preface to the dictionary:
It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without
reward.
Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science,
the pionier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press
forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour
may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.
attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul
-Malebranche via Simone Weil
posted by a non-writing reader who believes reading Yeats or Plato is an activity of the soul, but not the sole way of reading. When I read Lear(Edward) there is laughter. When I read to my children, there is a engagement with others.When I read liner notes on Julia Wolfe’s string quartets it is for information.When I read package inserts its for instruction.
Great topic, Amardeep. Reminded me of this passage from Boswell’s Johnson (Johnson speaking):
“I fell into an inattention to religion, or an indifference about it, in my ninth year. When at Oxford, I took up Law’s “Serious Call to a Holy Life,” expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational inquiry.”