discuss the biographical techniques employed by Boswell in his life of johnson
Answers
Boswell was a writer of genius, particularly in his finest type of writing—the record of what he had observed. His three main works-the "Journal" section of his Account of Corsica, the Tour to the Hebrides, and the Life of Johnson— were all based on notes or journals written shortly after the events they describe. Long practice, however, enabled Boswell years later to take condensed notes and to expand them into a detailed scene.
The main characteristics of Boswell's works are accuracy, a sense of the dramatic, and an eye for significant details. In his Life Boswell skillfully dramatized many scenes, building up his effects gradually. The structure of the biography, although ostensibly that of year-by-year arrangement, actually achieves unity through its recurrent topics— religion, government, and death—and through the adept playing off of subordinate figures—Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and Boswell himself—against Johnson. This latter technique projects Johnson into the spotlight as though he were the main character in a novel, one made up of a series of interconnected dramas in which Boswell has arranged all figures for maximum effect.