Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Samuel Johnson began his literary career as a contributor for the weekly newspaper The Birmingham Journal which used to be published on every Thursday. Johnson began contributing to the Birmingham Journal in 1733 and in October 1737, Johnson joined The Gentlean’s Magazine as a contributor. While his essays in The Gentleman’s Magazine were of political nature, he began contributing to another magazine titled The Rambler in 1750. The Rambler was published on Tuesdays and Saturdays in London from 1750 to 1752. A total number of 208 articles were published in The Rambler and all but four of them were written by Samuel Johnson. The publisher of the periodical journal was John Payne who paid two guineas to Samuel Johnson for each of his articles. Unlike Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709-1711), and Steele and Joseph Addison’s The Spectator (1711-1714), the essays of The Rambler were more serious in nature. Obviously, The Rambler didn’t get the same popularity as that of The Spectator, however, The Rambler was widely respected for the quality and power of the writing and the masterful use of language and rhetoric.
The major subjects discussed in the essays of The Rambler were morality, literature, society, politics, and religion. The Rambler didn’t prove to be a financial success but the essays written by Samuel Johnson for The Rambler became a huge success after being reissued, with the essays revised, in volume form in 1753.
Purpose of The Rambler: It was a period when the middle class of Britain was gaining strength. Literacy rates were high in England and the middle-class people were proving to be a strong force in the economy of Britain. As a result, they now had a more vibrant relationship with the upper middle class and aristocratic class of England. While the economic and social differences between the aristocratic class and middle class were diminishing, did not possess the social and intellectual tools to integrate into those higher social circles which required a great understanding of subjects including morality, literature, society, politics, and religion. John Payne and Samuel Johnson decided to write and publish copies of The Rambler in essay form which were made cheaply available for the middle-class people. The purpose was to help middle-class people in understanding the intricacies of varied subjects. Samuel Johnson was already a distinguished Man of Letters and the essays of The Rambler further strengthened his position as an intellectual of the Age of Enlightenment. In the fourth edition of The Rambler, Johnson explicitly commented that the purpose of The Rambler is to provide intellectual profit and literary delight to those who read his work. All these essays were didactic in nature but Samuel Johnson made sure that his essays may not appear as instructive manuals but rather may be read with an explorative attitude.
Initially, all the essays of The Rambler were published under the pseudonym The Rambler. However, in 1753, all 204 essays written by Samuel Johnson for the journal were published under his name. In these essays, Johnson often included his comments on his own experience of universal human anxieties and frustrations: The Rambler is a sage and a moralist, but he is also constitutionally indolent. Taken together these essays embody Johnson's belief that the author as a moralist must improve the world: they have little to do with contemporary political, social, or literary events, but the Rambler's comments on his society and on the human condition are characteristically ponderous, shrewd, ironic, compassionate, wise, and enormously perceptive.
One can compare Samuel Johnson’s essays in The Rambler with those of Francis Bacon’s Essays Civil and Moral. Samuel Johnson often included quotes and ideas from Renaissance humanists such as Desiderius Erasmus and René Descartes in his Essays for The Rambler and this is why his writings in The Rambler are considered neoclassical in nature.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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