Why Genre

This chapter begins with a survey of commentary on the Lives of the Poets from its first publication in 1779–1781 to the present. I was surprised to discover that the Lives had never before been the focus of a full-length study. Yet in the past 120 years it has been the subject of three scholarly editions. The 3000 pages of commentary in these editions indicate the respect in which Johnson’s last work is held. Now that John L. Rowlett has gathered Ralph Cohen’s various papers into one volume, Genre Theory and Historical Change, 2017, I argue that Ralph Cohen’s genre theory provides a way of formulating the first comprehensive understanding and evaluation of Johnson’s monumental work.