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Chapter 14 - Johnson and Travel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2022

Greg Clingham
Affiliation:
Bucknell University, Pennsylvania
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Summary

Samuel Johnson’s lifelong interest in travel and travel writing aligns neatly, in many ways, with his empiricist metaphysics. When we travel, we compare our assumptions and preconceptions against the real world and track the inevitable incongruities. But Johnson’s enduring interest in travel also reveals a more complex engagement with the material world – and Lockean empiricism more broadly – than we often recognize, and his attitude toward the genre is more complicated, more critical and probing, than we might expect. With reference primarily to Rasselas and A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, this chapter examines how Johnson leverages travel to combat habituation; enable comparative knowledge, which produces meaning and value; and assess our bodies and minds as we perceive, digest, and retain knowledge. Facilitating a comparative intellectual paradigm, and foregrounding epistemology, travel is, for Johnson, a critical posture that underpins his thinking far beyond his travel texts.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Johnson and Travel
  • Edited by Greg Clingham, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
  • Online publication: 22 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108966108.015
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  • Johnson and Travel
  • Edited by Greg Clingham, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
  • Online publication: 22 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108966108.015
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Johnson and Travel
  • Edited by Greg Clingham, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
  • Online publication: 22 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108966108.015
Available formats
×