Regulating Confusion - Samuel Johnson and the Crowd

"Thomas Reinert has succeeded--while giving his many predecessors their due--both in saying entirely new things about Samuel Johnson and also in addressing in an original and stimulating way the question of what it is that changes in eighteenth-century Britain--what it is that gives that culture its particular 'modernity.'"--Deidre Lynch, State University of New York at Buffalo

List of contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1. The Desire for Fame 18

2. Periodical Moralizing 46

3. The Vanity of Human Wishes 75

4. Exemplary Self-Sacrifice 89

5. Probability and Conjecture 122

Conclusion 139

Notes 163

Works Cited 183

Index 189

About the author

Thomas Reinert

Summary

Ambivalent about the disruption, perplexity, and variety apparent in the London of his day, Johnson was committed to the conventions of moral reflection and troubled by the pressure to adopt the perspective of the crowd and the language of social theory. This work explores the consequences of his ambivalence and his attempt to order the chaos.

Product details

• Authors: Reinert, Thomas Reinert
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.01.1996
• EAN: 9780822317173
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-1717-3
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 139 mm x 227 mm x 15 mm
• Weight: 331 g
• Series: Ojectifying Practice; Ojectifying Practice
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Sozialpsychologie, Englisch, Städte, Stadtgemeinden, Literaturwissenschaft, allgemein