a lecture on johnson and boswell by jorge luis borges

8/13/2019 A Lecture on Johnson and Boswell by Jorge Luis Borges

1/8

7/30/13 1:Lecture on Johnson and Boswell by Jorge Luis Borges | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

Page ttp://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/jul/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/

NYRblog : Roving thoughts and provocations from our writers

A Lecture on Johnson and Boswell

Jorge Luis Borges

Thomas Rowlandson: Walking up the High Street, 1786

Dr. Johnson was already fifty years old. He had published his dictionary, for which he wa

paid 1,500 pounds sterlingwhich became 1,600 when his publishers decided to give him

one hundred morewhen he finished. He was slowing down. He then published his editio

of Shakespeare, which he finished only because his publishers had received payments fromsubscribers, so it had to be done. Otherwise, Dr. Johnson spent his time engaged in

conversation.

.The truth is, in spite of his numerous accomplishments, he had a natural tendency

toward idleness. He preferred to talk rather than write. So, he worked only on that edition

of Shakespeare, which was one of his last works, for he received complaints, and satirical
http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/jorge-luis-borges/#tab-blog


2/8



responses, and this made him decide to finish the work, because the subscribers had alread

paid.

Johnson had a peculiar temperament. For a time he was extremely interested in the subjec

of ghosts. He was so interested in them that he spent several nights in an abandoned house

to see if he could meet one. Apparently, he didnt. Theres a famous passage by the Scotti

writer, Thomas Carlyle, I think it is in his Sartor Resartuswhich means The Tailor

Retailored, or The Mended Tailor, and well soon see whyin which he talks about

Johnson, saying that Johnson wanted to see a ghost. And Carlyle wonders: What is a

ghost? A ghost is a spirit that has taken corporal form and appears for a while among men

Then Carlyle adds, How could Johnson not have thought of this when faced with the

spectacle of the human multitudes he loved so much in the streets of London, for if a ghos

were a spirit that has taken a corporal form for a brief interval, why did it not occur to him

that the London multitudes were ghosts, that he himself was a ghost? What is each man bu

a spirit that has taken corporal form briefly and then disappears? What are men if not

ghosts?

.Johnson was in a bookstore when he met a young man named James Boswell. This

young man was born in Edinburgh in 1740 and died in the year 1795. He was the son of a

judge. In Scotland, judges were given the title of Lord and could choose the place they

wanted to be lord of. Boswells father had a small castle that was in ruins. Scotland is full

of castles in ruins, poor castles in the Highlands of Scotland, and as opposed to the castles

of the Rhine, which suggest an opulent life with small but more or less lavish courts, thesedont, they give the impression of a life of battle, of difficult battles against the English.

The castle was called Auchinleck. Boswells father, then, was Lord Auchinleck and so wa

his son. But this wasnt, let us say, a native title, from birth, but rather a judicial title. Now

even though Boswell showed an interest in letters, his parents wanted him to go into law.

He studied in Edinburgh and then for more than two years at Utretcht University in

Holland. This was customary at that time: to study at several universities, in the British

Isles and on the continent.

It could be said that Boswell had a premonition of his destiny. Like Milton knew that he

would be a poet before he had written a single line, Boswell always felt he would be the

biographer of a great man of his era. So he visited Voltaire; he tried to approach the great

men of his time. He visited Voltaire in Berne, in Switzerland, and he made friends with

Jean-Jacques Rousseauthey were friends for only fifteen or twenty days, because


3/8



Rousseau was a very ill-tempered manand then he became friends with an Italian

general, Paoli, from Corsica. And when he returned to England, he wrote a book about

Corsica, and at a party given in Stratford-upon-Avon to celebrate the birth of Shakespeare

he showed up dressed as a Corsican villager. So that people would recognize him as the

author of the book about Corsica, he carried a sign on his hat, on which he had written

Corsicas Boswell, and we know this because of his own testimony and that of hiscontemporaries.

There is something very strange about Boswell, something that has been interpreted in tw

different ways. Im going to look at the two extreme views: the one of the English essayis

and historian Macaulay, who wrote around the middle of the nineteenth century, and that

Bernard Shaw, written, I believe, around 1915, or something like that. Then there is a

whole range of judgments between those two. Macaulay says that the preeminence of

Homer as an epic poet, of Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, of Demosthenes as an orator,

and of Cervantes as a novelist is no less indisputable than the preeminence of Boswell as

biographer. And then he says that all those eminent names owed their preeminence to the

talent and brilliance, and that the odd thing about Boswell is that he owes hispreeminenc

as a biographer to his foolishness, his inconsistency, his vanity, and his imbecility.

He then recounts a series of instances in which Boswell appears as a ridiculous character.

He says that if these things that happened to Boswell had happened to anybody else, that

person would have wanted the earth to swallow him up. Boswell, however, dedicated

himself to publicizing them. For example, theres the scorn shown to him by an Englishduchess, and the fact that members of the club he managed to join thought there could not

be a person less intelligent than Boswell. But Macaulay forgets that we owe the narration

almost all those facts to Boswell himself. Now in the case of a short composition 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 in spite of being a fool or, according

to Macaulay, because he was a fool.

Now, let us take a look at the opposite opinion, that of Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw, in oof his long and incisive prologues, says that he is the heir to an apostolic succession of

dramatists, that this succession comes from the Greek tragediansfrom Aeschylus,

Sophocles, through Euripidesand then passes through Shakespeare, through Marlowe. H

says that he is not, in fact, better than Shakespeare, that if he had lived in Shakespeares

century he would not have written works better thanHamletorMacbeth; but now he can,


4/8



for he cannot stand Shakespeare, because he has read authors who are better than him.

Before, he mentioned other dramatists, names that are somewhat surprising for such a list

He says we have the four Evangelists, those four great dramatists who created the charact

Christ. Before, we had Plato, who created the character Socrates.

Then we have Boswell, who created the character Johnson. And now, we have me, who

has created so many characters it is not worth listing them, the list would be almost infinit

as well as being well known. Finally, he says, I am heir to the apostolic succession th

begins with Aeschylus and ends in me and that undoubtedly will continue. So here we

have these two extreme opinions: one, that Boswell was an idiot who had the good fortun

to meet Johnson and write his biographythats Macaulaysand the other, the opposite

of Bernard Shaw, who says that Johnson was, among his other literary merits, a dramatic

character created by Boswell.

.So, now we will return to the relationship between Boswell and Johnson. Johnson wasfamous man, a dictator in the world of English letters (at the same time he was a man who

suffered from loneliness, as do many famous men). Boswell was a young man, in his

twenties. Johnson was from a humble background; his father was a bookseller in a small

town in Staffordshire. And the other was a young aristocrat. In other words, it is well

known that men of a certain age are rejuvenated by the company of the young. Johnson

was, moreover, an extremely unkempt person: he paid no attention to what he wore; he ha

a gluttonous appetite. When he ate, the veins on his forehead swelled, he emitted all kinds

of grunts, and he didnt respond if somebody asked him a question; he pushed awaylikeso, with his handsa woman who asked him something, and grunted at the same time, or

hed start praying right in the middle of a meeting. But he knew that everything would be

tolerated because he was an important figure. In spite of all this, Boswell became friends

with him. Boswell did not contradict him; he listened to his opinions with reverence.

It is true that at times Boswell annoyed him with questions that were difficult to answer. H

asked him, for examplejust to know what Dr. Johnson would answerWhat would yo

do if you were locked in a tower with a newborn baby? Of course, Johnson answered, Ihave no intention of answering such an inept question. And Boswell jotted down this

answer, went to his house, and wrote it up. But after two or three months of friendship,

Boswell decided to go to Holland to continue his legal studies, and Johnson, who was ver

attached to London Johnson said, When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

Johnson accompanied Boswell to the boat. I think it is many miles south of London. That


5/8



is, he diligently tolerated the long andat the timedifficult trip, and Boswell says he

stood at the port watching the boat sail away, waving goodbye. They wouldnt see each

other for two or three years. Then, after his failure with Voltaire, his failure with Roussea

his success with Paoliwhich might not have been difficult because Paoli was not a very

important personBoswell decided to dedicate himself to being Johnsons biographer.

Boswell conceived of the idea of an extensive biography, one that included his

conversations with Johnson, whom he saw several times a week, sometimes more. The Lif

of Samuel Johnson, by Boswell, has often been compared to Conversations of Goethe, by

Eckermann, a book that in my opinion is in no way comparable, even though it was praise

by Nietzsche as the best book ever written in German. Because Eckermann was a man of

limited intelligence who greatly revered Goethe, who spoke with him ex cathedra.

Eckermann very rarely dared to contradict Goethe. Then hed go home and write it all

down. The book has something of catechism about it. In other words: Eckermann asks,

Goethe answers, the first writes down what Goethe has said. Eckermann almost doesn

exist except as a kind of machine that records Goethes words. We know nothing about

Eckermann, nothing about his characterhe undoubtedly had one, but this cannot be

deduced from the book, cannot be inferred from it.

On the other hand, what Boswell planned, or in any case what he carried out, was

completely different: to make Johnsons biography a drama, with several characters. Ther

is [Sir Joshua] Reynolds, there is [Oliver] Goldsmith, sometimes the members of the circl

or how would we call it, the salon, of which Johnson was the leader. And they appear andbehave like the characters in a play. Indeed, each has his own personalityabove all, Dr.

Johnson, who is presented sometimes as ridiculous but always as lovable. This is what

happens with Cervantess character, Don Quixote, especially in the second part, when the

author has learned to know his character and has forgotten his initial goal of parodying

novels of chivalry. This is true, because the more writers develop their characters, the bett

they get to know them. So, thats how we have a character who is sometimes ridiculous, b

who can be serious and have profound thoughts, and above all is one of the most beloved

characters in all of history. And we can say of history because Don Quixote is more reato us than Cervantes himself, as Unamuno and others have maintained. . And at the end

Don Quixote is a slightly ridiculous character, but he is also a gentleman worthy of our

respect, and sometimes our pity, but he is always lovable. And this is the same sensation w

get from the image of Dr. Johnson, given to us by Boswell, with his grotesque appearance

his long arms, his slovenly appearance. But he is lovable.


6/8



.Now, in the same way that we have seen how Johnson is similar to Don Quixote, we

have to think that just as Sancho is the companion Quixote sometimes treats badly, we see

Boswell in that same relation to Dr. Johnson: a sometimes stupid and loyal companion.

There are characters whose role is to bring out the heros personality. In other words, ofte

authors need a character who serves as a framework for and a contrast to the deeds of his

hero. This is Sancho, and that character in Boswells work is Boswell himself. That is,Boswell appears as a despicable character. But it seems impossible to me that Boswell

didnt realize this. And this shows that Boswell positioned himself in contrast to Johnson.

The fact that Boswell himself tells anecdotes in which he appears ridiculous makes him n

seem ridiculous at all, for if he wrote them down, he did it because he saw that the purpos

of the anecdote was to make Johnson stand out.

There is a Hindu school of philosophy that says that we are not the actors in our lives, but

rather the spectators, and this is illustrated using the metaphor of a dancer. These days,

maybe it would be better to say an actor. A spectator sees a dancer or an actor, or, if you

prefer, reads a novel, and ends up identifying with one of the characters who is there in

front of him. This is what those Hindu thinkers before the fifth century said. And the same

thing happens with us. I, for example, was born the same day as Jorge Luis Borges, exactl

the same day. I have seen him be ridiculous in some situations, pathetic in others. And, as

have always had him in front of me, I have ended up identifying with him. According to

this theory, in other words, the I would be double: there is a profound I, and this I is

identified withthough separate fromthe other. Now, I dont know what experiences

you might have had, but sometimes this happens to me: usually at two particular kinds of

momentsat moments when something very good has happened, and, above all, at

moments when something very bad has happened to me. And for a few seconds, I have fe

But, what do I care about all this? It is as if all of this is happening to somebody else.

That is, I have felt that there is something deep down inside me that remains separate.

And this, surely, is what Shakespeare also felt, because in one of his comedies there is a

soldier, a cowardly soldier, theMiles Gloriosusof the Latin comedy. The man is a show-

off, he makes people believe that he has acted bravely, and they promote him and hebecomes a captain. Then they discover his trick, and in front of the entire troop they pull o

his medals; they humiliate him. And then he is left alone and says: Captain Ill be no

more; / But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft / As captain shall: simply the thing I am

Shall make me live. No ser capitn. He says simply, the thing I am shall make me

live. That is, he feels that above and beyond the circumstances, beyond his cowardice, hi


7/8



humiliation, he is something else, a kind of strength we all have within us, what Spinoza

called God, what Schopenhauer called will, what Bernard Shaw called life force, an

Bergson called vital impulse. I think this is also what was going on with Boswell.

Perhaps Boswell simply felt it as an aesthetic necessity that to better showcase Johnson,

there should be a very different character alongside him. Something like in the novels of

Conan Doyle: the mediocre Dr. Watson makes the brilliant Sherlock Holmes stand out ev

more. And Boswell gives himself the role of the ridiculous one, and he maintains it

throughout the entire book. Yet, we feel a sincere friendship between the two in the same

way we feel it when we read Conan Doyles novels. It is natural, as I have said, that this

would be so; for Johnson was a famous man and alone, and of course he liked to feel by h

side the friendship of a much younger man, who so obviously admired him.

There is another problem that comes up here, I dont remember if I have already mentione

it, and this is what led Johnson to devote his last years almost exclusively to conversationJohnson almost stopped writing, besides the edition of Shakespeare, which he had to do

because the publishers were demanding it. Now, this can be explained in a certain way. It

can be explained because Johnson knew he liked to converse, and he knew that the gems o

his conversation would be recorded by Boswell. At the same time, if it appears that Bosw

had shown Johnson the manuscript, then the work would have lost a lot. We have to accep

the fact, true or false, that Johnson was unaware of what it contained. But this would

explain Johnsons silence, the fact that Johnson knew that what he said would not be lost.

Now, [Joseph] Wood Krutch, an American critic, has wondered if Boswells bookreproduces Johnsons conversations exactly, and he reaches the conclusion, in a very

believable way, that Boswell does not reproduce Johnsons conversation as a stenographe

would have done, or a recording, or anything like that, rather that he produces the effecto

Johnsons conversation. In other words, it is very possible that Johnson was not always as

epigrammatic nor as ingenious as he is presented in the work, though undoubtedly, after

meetings at his club, his interlocutors retain memories much like that. There are sentences

in any case, that seem to be coined by Johnson.

Somebody said to Johnson that he could not imagine a more miserable life than a sailors,

that to see a warship, to see the sailors crowded together, sometimes whipped, was to see

the nadir, the lowest depths of the human condition. And Johnson answered, The

profession of sailors and soldiers has the dignity of danger. All men feel ashamed at not

having been at sea or in battle. This is in tune with the courage we feel in Dr. Johnson.


8/8



Excerpted from Class 10: Samuel Johnson as Seen by Boswell. The Art of Biograph

Johnson and His Critics. Monday, November 7, 1966, inProfessor Borges: A Cours

on English Literature, a compilation of twenty-five lectures Borges gave in 1966 that

has been translated into English for the first time by Katherine Silver. It will be

published by New Directions on July 31.

July 28, 2013, 10:23 a.m.

Copyright 1963-2013 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved.Copyright 1963-2013 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://ndbooks.com/book/professor-borges

a lecture on johnson and boswell by jorge luis borges

Documents