Virginia Woolf and Samuel Johnson

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Virginia Woolf and Samuel Johnson: Common Readers argues for an intertextual reading of Woolf's criticism by placing it within the larger network of literary history. Woolf's critical assumptions can be viewed as a product of her reading of the eighteenth century, specifically the critical values articulated by Samuel Johnson and mediated by Leslie Stephen. Through an analysis of Woolf's essays, Rosenberg illustrates that Woolf is directly influenced by Johnson's theories of writing and speech; that these theories are most explicitly stated in her early critical work; and that Woolf's early essays are essential to the development of the dialogical style of her most masterful novels.