Samuel Johnson After Deconstruction Rhetoric and the Rambler

"My other works are wine and water," said Samuel Johnson to Samuel Rogers, "but myRambleris pure wine." Some critics have disagreed, labeling the essays uneven and dismissing the bulk of them as hastily concocted hackwork by a writer taking a break from or earning money for a more important projecttheDictionary of the English Language.Yet, Steven Lynn, in the first book-length study ofThe Rambler,resoundingly contradicts such critics; combining deconstruction and other current methods with eighteenth-century rhetorical theories, Lynn refutes conventional critical wisdom among Johnsonians, asserting that the 208Rambleressays form a coherent whole. Lynn argues that a controlling tenet in the series is that "we are each and every one ramblers, wandering and searching for some stable meaning and satisfaction, which will inevitably elude us in this world. By confronting this absence, Johnson (like a deconstructive theologian) leads us repeatedly to acknowledge the necessity of faith." For Lynn, furthermore, the unifying thread running through the series is expressed in the prayer Johnson composed as he embarked on the journey ofThe Rambler:"Almighty God, . . . without whose grace all wisdom is folly, grant, I beseech Thee, that in this my undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be witheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the Salvation both of myself and others." As Lynn shows, though Johnson anticipates deconstruction, his controlling evangelistic aim differs profoundly and instructively from it.Lynn, Steven J. is the author of 'Samuel Johnson After Deconstruction Rhetoric and the Rambler' with ISBN 9780809317707 and ISBN 0809317702.