English and Linguistics Seminar: Associate Professor Paul Tankard
Intimate benevolence: What we need to know (and Samuel Johnson can tell us) about friendship
Boswell’s "Life of Johnson" is in many ways a celebration of friendship. Samuel Johnson not only enjoyed and exhibited friendship, he also wrote about it in his most companionable writings, his periodical essays. But his writings mainly issue warnings about the claims and dangers of friendship. In the present age of social media “friendship” and other “relationships” — online and otherwise — his ideas about the power and importance of friendship are worth careful reading and study.