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FORMAL VERSE IMITATION AND THE RHETORICAL PRINCIPLES OF IMITATION IN THE NEO-LATIN POETRY OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.

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From: Studies in the Literary Imagination
Date: 20000922
Author:Venturo, David F.

Born in 1709, Samuel Johnson grew up with and maintained a lifelong interest in English formal verse imitation, as both poet and critic. He was familiar with its history and personally witnessed the genre's extraordinary peak in popularity in the 1730s, thanks largely to Pope's splendid Imitations of Horace, which was published to much acclaim just as Johnson was beginning his career as a professional writer, indeed, Johnson earned his earliest literary recognition with the publication of London (1738), a verse imitation of Juvenal's Third Satire, and solidified that reputation a ...

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