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I came to this page from the link at the bottom of this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppard - where there is a character is described as 'his Boswell'. The connection is not made either in the original page or this page. There needs to be some explanation of the term Boswell as a slang for a sidekick. Or should the link refer to an article in the Wikidictionary perhaps? - LC
The chapter about Boswell's early life reads:
The first conversation between Johnson and Boswell is frequently quoted:
Boswell: "Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it."
Johnson: "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help."
It is widely believed that Johnson despised the Scots; however, careful reading of Boswell and of Johnson shows that, while Johnson disliked the conditions under which most Scots lived (the rain and the poverty), he actually liked the people. He undertook lengthy walking tours of Scotland and spent much of his life in Boswell's company.
IMO, the first part belongs in WikiQuote, and the second part is more about Johnson than about Boswell, and should (if at all) be included in the former's article rather than the latter's. -- Thf1977 13:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I put up links showing Boswell supported the barbaric slave trade and yet these have been deleted - why? Surely things like this are a matter of historical record - what is the point of denying them?
Spotting the sentence, "When the Life of Johnson was published in 1791 it at once commanded the admiration that Boswell had sought for so long, and it has suffered no diminution since," I immediately suspected that this might not be the original writing of a Wikipedia editor. Google seems to indicate that it is from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English at http://www.fullbooks.com/A-Short-Biographical-Dictionary-of-English2.html . The site says "Thousands of Free-Text Books", but gives no other copyright information. The Dictionary and other works on this site seem to be in the public domain. Can anyone (A) verify this, (B) check whether anything else in this article should be attributed to this source, and (C) check whether anything else in this article should be attributed to other sources. -- Writtenonsand ( talk) 16:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
"These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently"
His father was called Lord Auchinleck, being a Scottish Supreme court judge, but was not thereby noble. Young Jamey was, at best, Laird #9 of Auchinleck in waiting, certainly not noble. Dugong.is.good.tucker ( talk) 21:30, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The current statement about Boswell's nervous condition is meaningless, but I do not know how to edit it as to correct it, as I do not know the original intent of the writer. From the footnote, I'm guessing the nervous condition is suspected to be genetic and "inherited"? But I can't be sure: "inherent" is not used like this in standard English (American, anyway). Please clarify 69.244.183.217 ( talk) 07:11, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
I may add that the entire section on his Early life seems rife with minutia you do not find in the lives of more significant people on Wikipedia, seems highly speculative, lacks citation, and seems cribbed from what might well be non-open sources (the remarks on "boswell" being "swarthy" and "tending to plumpness" set off Google Books searches, but the material is not searchable from there). If the writing is not copied from an earlier era, it reads as if it were translated from another language by someone not entirely fluent in modern English. It is a disaster. 69.244.183.217 ( talk) 07:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
I have cited Kay Redfield Jamison (Prof. of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins), who, in her 1996 book "Touched by Fire", identifies Boswell (among many other writers) as likely suffering from manic-depressive (bipolar) disorder. His known episodes of depression and occasional hypomania (for which he sought "calming" therapy) make this diagnosis very likely. Also, bipolar disorder has an extremely strong genetic/familiar component, and is one of the psychiatrist conditions that responds very well to pharmacotherapy - lithium carbonate for the manic phase and for maintenance, anti-depressants for depressive episodes. Prakash Nadkarni ( talk) 16:30, 28 October 2017 (UTC) 28 Oc 2017.
This article gives precious little dating of Boswell's tours, which is fairly fundamental information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.227.27 ( talk) 15:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
By Lindsay McIntosh, The Times, 2 May 2011:
... now a dictionary written by James Boswell himself has been found after 200 years. And, significantly for a writer criticised for forsaking his Scottish heritage in favour of England, it is a Scots language dictionary. The unsigned manuscript, confirmed by Boswell scholars as being in his writing, consists of 39 pages including about 800 Scots words and phrases... Although the existence of the dictionary was known of through the journals, held at Yale University, its whereabouts were a mystery until Susan Rennie, a Scots language expert, stumbled on it while researching John Jamieson, the 19th-century Scots lexicographer. She uncovered the manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and compared the handwriting with Boswell’s letters in the National Library of Scotland. The Bodleian had bought it as part of Jamieson’s papers in 1927... More details about the Boswell manuscript are available on the internet at boswellian.com -- Mais oui! ( talk) 06:35, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
This section seems manifestly biased to me. It also seems to be an instance of original research, citing no authority whatsoever for its allusion to Macaulay being unfavourably disposed towards Boswell due to political or family concerns. By his own account, Macaulay adored the book, as he adored the character of Johnson.
At any rate, I propose to rewrite the section properly and forewarn any powers who would object to the operation that they might safely have occasion to do so. Let us say, 8 hours or so.
I,E •
Wouldst thou speak? 04:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:James Boswell/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
I have added this to WPSI, on account of Boswell & Johnson's famous visit to the Western Isles. However, this article is particularly weak on this aspect of Boswell's life. -- MacRusgail 19:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 19:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 19:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
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In the James_Boswell#Mature_life section, one paragraph begins:
Despite his relative literary success with accounts of his European travels, ...
There is no indication anywhere in the article that his contemporaries would have had access to his journals. The only dates of publication that appear are in the 20th century, when the journals were (re)discovered. Were they published earlier? How would others been aware of their content? Scarabocchio ( talk) 15:35, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
We really should have an article on Frederick A. Pottle who did most of the work on getting the Boswell personal papers in shape for publication by Yale. He was a Sterling Professor at Yale which indicates that they considered him to be one of "the best in their field," to quote our own article on that honorable position. Pascalulu88 ( talk) 01:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
This
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|
I came to this page from the link at the bottom of this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppard - where there is a character is described as 'his Boswell'. The connection is not made either in the original page or this page. There needs to be some explanation of the term Boswell as a slang for a sidekick. Or should the link refer to an article in the Wikidictionary perhaps? - LC
The chapter about Boswell's early life reads:
The first conversation between Johnson and Boswell is frequently quoted:
Boswell: "Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it."
Johnson: "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help."
It is widely believed that Johnson despised the Scots; however, careful reading of Boswell and of Johnson shows that, while Johnson disliked the conditions under which most Scots lived (the rain and the poverty), he actually liked the people. He undertook lengthy walking tours of Scotland and spent much of his life in Boswell's company.
IMO, the first part belongs in WikiQuote, and the second part is more about Johnson than about Boswell, and should (if at all) be included in the former's article rather than the latter's. -- Thf1977 13:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I put up links showing Boswell supported the barbaric slave trade and yet these have been deleted - why? Surely things like this are a matter of historical record - what is the point of denying them?
Spotting the sentence, "When the Life of Johnson was published in 1791 it at once commanded the admiration that Boswell had sought for so long, and it has suffered no diminution since," I immediately suspected that this might not be the original writing of a Wikipedia editor. Google seems to indicate that it is from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English at http://www.fullbooks.com/A-Short-Biographical-Dictionary-of-English2.html . The site says "Thousands of Free-Text Books", but gives no other copyright information. The Dictionary and other works on this site seem to be in the public domain. Can anyone (A) verify this, (B) check whether anything else in this article should be attributed to this source, and (C) check whether anything else in this article should be attributed to other sources. -- Writtenonsand ( talk) 16:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
"These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently"
His father was called Lord Auchinleck, being a Scottish Supreme court judge, but was not thereby noble. Young Jamey was, at best, Laird #9 of Auchinleck in waiting, certainly not noble. Dugong.is.good.tucker ( talk) 21:30, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The current statement about Boswell's nervous condition is meaningless, but I do not know how to edit it as to correct it, as I do not know the original intent of the writer. From the footnote, I'm guessing the nervous condition is suspected to be genetic and "inherited"? But I can't be sure: "inherent" is not used like this in standard English (American, anyway). Please clarify 69.244.183.217 ( talk) 07:11, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
I may add that the entire section on his Early life seems rife with minutia you do not find in the lives of more significant people on Wikipedia, seems highly speculative, lacks citation, and seems cribbed from what might well be non-open sources (the remarks on "boswell" being "swarthy" and "tending to plumpness" set off Google Books searches, but the material is not searchable from there). If the writing is not copied from an earlier era, it reads as if it were translated from another language by someone not entirely fluent in modern English. It is a disaster. 69.244.183.217 ( talk) 07:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
I have cited Kay Redfield Jamison (Prof. of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins), who, in her 1996 book "Touched by Fire", identifies Boswell (among many other writers) as likely suffering from manic-depressive (bipolar) disorder. His known episodes of depression and occasional hypomania (for which he sought "calming" therapy) make this diagnosis very likely. Also, bipolar disorder has an extremely strong genetic/familiar component, and is one of the psychiatrist conditions that responds very well to pharmacotherapy - lithium carbonate for the manic phase and for maintenance, anti-depressants for depressive episodes. Prakash Nadkarni ( talk) 16:30, 28 October 2017 (UTC) 28 Oc 2017.
This article gives precious little dating of Boswell's tours, which is fairly fundamental information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.227.27 ( talk) 15:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
By Lindsay McIntosh, The Times, 2 May 2011:
... now a dictionary written by James Boswell himself has been found after 200 years. And, significantly for a writer criticised for forsaking his Scottish heritage in favour of England, it is a Scots language dictionary. The unsigned manuscript, confirmed by Boswell scholars as being in his writing, consists of 39 pages including about 800 Scots words and phrases... Although the existence of the dictionary was known of through the journals, held at Yale University, its whereabouts were a mystery until Susan Rennie, a Scots language expert, stumbled on it while researching John Jamieson, the 19th-century Scots lexicographer. She uncovered the manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and compared the handwriting with Boswell’s letters in the National Library of Scotland. The Bodleian had bought it as part of Jamieson’s papers in 1927... More details about the Boswell manuscript are available on the internet at boswellian.com -- Mais oui! ( talk) 06:35, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
This section seems manifestly biased to me. It also seems to be an instance of original research, citing no authority whatsoever for its allusion to Macaulay being unfavourably disposed towards Boswell due to political or family concerns. By his own account, Macaulay adored the book, as he adored the character of Johnson.
At any rate, I propose to rewrite the section properly and forewarn any powers who would object to the operation that they might safely have occasion to do so. Let us say, 8 hours or so.
I,E •
Wouldst thou speak? 04:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:James Boswell/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
I have added this to WPSI, on account of Boswell & Johnson's famous visit to the Western Isles. However, this article is particularly weak on this aspect of Boswell's life. -- MacRusgail 19:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 19:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 19:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on James Boswell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 04:06, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
In the James_Boswell#Mature_life section, one paragraph begins:
Despite his relative literary success with accounts of his European travels, ...
There is no indication anywhere in the article that his contemporaries would have had access to his journals. The only dates of publication that appear are in the 20th century, when the journals were (re)discovered. Were they published earlier? How would others been aware of their content? Scarabocchio ( talk) 15:35, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
We really should have an article on Frederick A. Pottle who did most of the work on getting the Boswell personal papers in shape for publication by Yale. He was a Sterling Professor at Yale which indicates that they considered him to be one of "the best in their field," to quote our own article on that honorable position. Pascalulu88 ( talk) 01:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC)