Life of Cowley - Part C

  • Consider Dr. Samuel Johnson as a critic and biographer with special reference to "The Life of Cowley"? [NU. 2012, 2014]

/Give an account of Dr. Samuel Johnson as a critic and biographer from your reading of Life of Cowley.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was indeed a notable critic and biographer of the 18th century. His work, "The Life of Cowley," stands as a proof of his wit, intellect, and literary contributions.

Samuel possesses the art of writing a biography in ‘The Life of Cowley’. He achieves scholastic knowledge and experience enough to write a biography of Abraham Cowley. He has a great influence on the life of Cowley through his philosophy and psychology. As a poet, he possesses artistic sensibility and he yearns for rational art in writing poetry. He enters into the depth of Cowley through his philosophy and discovers his poetic genius while he was studying at school.


Johnson realised that Abraham Cowley was greatly influenced by Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ and he had a great desire to be an epic writer. As a critic, Johnson upholds the merits and demerits of Cowley at the time of writing Cowley’s biography. He appreciated Cowley’s engagement at Paris where Cowley got a chance to work as a secretary to Lord Jermyne. He had an opportunity to manage important things with men and women. There he wrote letters to the Earl of Arlington that brought him reputation.


Cowley was greatly inspired by Homer, Virgil and Tasso to write an epic. He was highly influenced by Virgil’s great epic ‘Aeneid’. He composed ‘Davideis’ which contains twelve parts like Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’. But he could not complete the poem. He was able to finish the third part of the poem. Even then the poem achieved much admiration from the readers. The poem bears the testimony of Cowley’s sharp intellect and scholastic knowledge.


As a critic, Samuel Johnson upholds the shortcomings of Cowley in writing poetry which paves the way of his purification. Wit used by Cowley is appreciated by the readers. Wit is the driving force of his thoughts which lack new and natural concepts. Johnson emphasises on just noble and perfect concepts in writing poetry. He overwhelmingly appreciates the poems of Cowley and makes him a great metaphysical poet but does not hesitate a bit to expose the shortcomings and failings in his writing.


To sum up, we may say, Dr. Johnson’s art of writing a biography presents the life of Cowley whole heartedly with merits and demerits. He is not only a biographer but also a critic.