Description
Book SynopsisThis edition of Johnson's Latin Poems contains a Preface and Introduction followed by text, translation (prose), and brief notes on the poems. Several corrections have been made to the standard text. The notes deal with the obscurities and provide comment on style and treatment. It is often interesting to see how Johnson uses his Latin sources, especially Horace, to add a dimension to his meaning. There are numerous links with familiar episodes in Johnson's life, e.g., his trip to the Hebrides, the revision of his dictionary, his recovery from illness; and there are instances (notable in the anguished appeals for mercy in his prayers), where the more distant Latin form enables Johnson to say things about himself that he would never have expressed in English. The reader will find new details added to the well-loved portrait.
Trade Review"Those studying the Latinity of Samuel Johnson need no introduction to the work of Niall Rudd. . . . The emininent classicist, however, is characteristically unassuming about his work. . . . Rudd is also too modest when he claims to have done little in the The Latin Poems : to emend the text where necessary, to translate 'fairly literally' for readers with little or no Latin, and to explain the occasional stylistic obscurity and 'more relevant classical allusions.' This approach makes for an austere book, especially when compared with Barry Baldwin's larger edition of Johnson's Latin and Greek poems. But the slimness of this book masks its substantive achievements. It might seem that an edition of the Latin poems, like the two volumes reviewed above, would necessarily be aimed at a rarefied audience. Instead, Rudd has made these poems accessible to the specialist and the common reader alike." -- Christopher Vilmar * The Cambridge Quarterly *
