Write a note on Dr. Johnson's prose style.

Write a note on Dr. Johnson’s prose style.

Ans.

Grand prose style

Dr. Johnson belongs to Neoclassical age. This age was famous for great literary works. Like other authors of this age, Doctor Johnson imitated the great masters of Greece and Rome. So his style is grand. Dr. Johnson used new classical style for his periodical essays. His main aim was to reform the society and to preach morals to the people of his age. He wanted to remove the view of romance from their eyes, and make them see life in its real hard from. In Rasselas he said: Human life is every where a stage in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed. His style has the quality of brevity.

Latinism, Humour and Courage

His language is highly learned. It is full of quotations references, and allusions. In his Dictionary with seven volumes, He has seven the words and meanings of high order. His greatness lies of his great thoughts. He lived in mid-eighteenth century and that period in English Literature is known as the ‘Age of Johnson’. He was certainly not the greatest literary man of those days he was no match for Goldsmith, Gibbon or Sheridan, but his personality and influence were no doubt great.

His style had distinctive characteristics which could be imitated and parodied. His sentences were finished and possessed a perfect structure. Classical prose attained perfection in him. He had a lofty conception of literature and as a scholar considered it dignified to use big words and Latin phrases. His style was dynamic and rigid. In his later prose he used an essay and conversational style. In fact his style was weighty but his words were packed with meaning.

Language

Dr. Johnson is a great dictator of literary world. He used quotations, references and allusions frequently. They are always apt and meaningful. Figures of speech are also a part of Johnson’s style. He used metaphors and similes. He was a always original. He was impulsive, often whimsical passionate in feelings and warm in imagination. He honestly believed that books should teach the art of living. The following lines are from the essay, Praises of Solitude:

But though learning may be conferred by solitude, its application must be attained by general converse. He has learned to no purpose that is not able to teach, and he will always teach unsuccessfully, who cannot recommend his sentiments by his diction and address.

Verbosity

Verbosity is the characteristic quality of Johnson’s style. He not only used big words but was also found of using the abstract for the concrete, of clumsy invectives of contorted sentences, of complicated construction and of monotonous rhythm. His style is strongly characterized by mannerism………repetition of peculiar forms of language, accruing from habitual use thereof. This mannerism made his style rather offensive and heavy.

Johnson’s style reflects the varying moods and conditions of life. He was most vigorous and effective when he was in a passionate mood, and as such his conversation excelled his writing. No doubt, there were moments in his life when his writing assumed the vigour and terseness of his talk. That is why he is at his best when he paints a tragic picture or a scene of misery or sorrow. His letters are particularly marked by such a tone wherein he poured forth his heart and gave vent to some sentiment as love, sympathy, anger or annoyance, self conceit or self respect or any similar feeling or surge of emotion. His letters to Lord Chesterfield and amply display this force and passion. His Letter to Lord Chesterfield is a powerful expression of his heart felt-agony at the callous apathy of a patron. This letter reveals Johnson in his true colour. In this letter Johnson is simple, terse and thrilling, an as the occasion was a private one, we may take it that in the extraordinary fire and pungency of the sentences we have something like a specimen of that marvelous power of conversation which make him the wonder of his age.

Conclusion

Dr. Johnson is a New-classical prose writer. His style is full of humour and Latinized words. Most of the time he is very precise and refrains from using superfluous words or phrases. Sometimes he becomes hard and heavy on account of this. In the words of Emile Legouis. “Though he had not Addison’s supple grace, and though his style was too consistently majestic. yet he could convey in the essays of his ‘Rambler’ and Idler the result of his own personal reflection of life”.