The Rise of Literary Criticism as a Genre

Chapter Six demonstrates how genre analysis is basic to the rise of literary criticism: my contention is that the critical sections of the Lives represent the first extended example of textual literary criticism in English. The concept Johnson continually relies on to remain above the fray is evaluative genre analysis, ranging from the heroic dramas of Dryden to the loco-descriptive poetry of Pope’s “Windsor Forest” and Thomson’s “The Seasons”. Genre serves Johnson in two respects: (1) to decide what is appropriate to an established genre such as the didactic essay, exemplified by Pope’s “Essay on Criticism,” and (2) to defend a new genre, as in the case of the loco-descriptive poetry of, for example, “Cooper’s Hill” and “The Seasons”. Evaluative genre analysis is a means for Johnson to focus on the literary texts as opposed to the personal, social, and political issues that divided the adversarial writers and critics. Genre becomes the language of practical literary criticism.