전기에 나타난 존슨의 문학관: 『쌔비지 전』과 『스위프트 전』을 중심으로

Abstract

This thesis proposes to study Johnson's views on literature as they appear in the strikingly contrasting pair of biographies, Life of Savage and Life of Swift. Johnson dearly cherished biography as the most delightful and useful genre of literature since it teaches the common reader the art of living. Life of Savage, written about 35 years before Lives of the Poets, shows a wonderful new achievement in the English history of biographical writings. Artfully maintaining a delicate balance between his personal intimacy to the subject and his duty of fidelity as a biographer, he finally puts a strict moral judgment of the subject above his deeply-felt sympathy towards it. In other words, he values more his duty to the common reader than to the subject. In a stark contrast to Life of Savage, Johnson reveals an all too clear antipathy to the subject in Life of Swift. There is good reason to suppose that his prejudices and repulsion derives from his hatred of Swift's savage satire. Interestingly, however, what he dreaded most in Swift and his satire closely resembled a suppressed part of his own. In fact, they share some crucial ideas about human nature. Johnson shared with Swift man's unregenerate restlessness of spirit. Both dreaded madness in themselves and tended to equate the mad with the bad. But when they see follies and vices in others, their responses diverged dramatically. Johnson's satirical impulse tends to be contained by the reflection of “there but for the Grace of God go I” and quickly turns benign, whereas Swift's is exacerbated into added urgencies of rejection. Because of this crucial difference in temper and moral outlook, Johnson could not properly understand Swift and satire in general. His firm, sometimes even obstinate conviction that literature should help people better to enjoy life or better to endure it went the length of precipitating him into too simple a conception of literature, almost verging on a moralistic fallacy. While in Life of Savage Johnson's power of sympathy lead to an extraordinary biographical achievement, in Life of Swift his power of antipathy produced a near disaster in his critical judgment.