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James Boswell (1740–1795) – a man for whom the word “scapegrace” might have been invented – was born #OTD, 29 Oct.

A Happy Bozzy Birthday thread

1/5

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/james-boswells-scotland-106667503/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

Early on, James had served notice that he was not cut out to follow in his father’s strait-laced footsteps. Scots are well known for being torn between dour conformity and impetuous rebelliousness, a contradiction emphatically personified by Boswell father and son. When James was 18, he developed a passion for the theater and fell for an actress a good ten years older. After Lord Auchinleck banished him to the University of Glasgow, Boswell, still under the spell of his Catholic mistress, decided to convert—tantamount to career suicide in Presbyterian Scotland—and ran away to London. There he lost interest in Catholicism, caught a venereal disease and decided he wanted to be a soldier.

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“While in Rome, Boswell posed for a painting […] Above him, an owl perched absurdly on a branch. Somehow the painter captured the mixture of silliness and self-importance that made Boswell so engaging.”

(National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh)

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https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/1865/james-boswell-1740-1795-diarist-and-biographer-dr-samuel-johnson

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

A portrait of James Boswell, painted by George Willison (1741–1797). Boswell sits side-on at the foot of a large tree, his head turned to the left to regard the viewer with a humorous expression. A young man, slightly plump in the face, he is wearing a large green fur-trimmed cape over a red waistcoat with gold frogging, red breeches (also with details picked out in gold) and white stockings, and a black silk cravat. His left leg is folded over his right and he carries a black tricorn hat casually in his left hand. A yellow-eyed, somewhat angry-looking owl is perched on a branch above him.

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“A fool can utter a brilliant sentence but it seems quite rare for a fool to be able to write an admirable biography of seven or eight hundred pages…”

Jorge Luis Borges asks, Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson & write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?

3/5

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #Borges #JorgeLuisBorges

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography.”

—Andrew O’Hagan’s celebration of James Boswell, London Review of Books, 5 Oct 2000

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https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n19/andrew-o-hagan/self-hugging

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

Boswell’s way of talking about himself can seem to us very modern: pre-Freud and pre-tabloid, he talks in a shockingly open way about the nature of his own (and other people’s) desires, affections, tribulations and thoughts of death. He also suggests the quality of his own delight. He is a self-watcher and a self-hugger. And his way of looking at other people – including Johnson – reveals him to be a harbinger of the documentary techniques and psychological modes of enquiry we now take for granted. In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography. He wrote like hell, and the full fragrance, the authentic buzz, of his own life and period, such as it was, rises with Flemish exactness from every other sentence he chose to write down.

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece

“The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print… It went through 41 editions just in the 19th century.”

5/5

https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson