Negotiating the Past, Examining Ourselves: Johnson, Women, and Gender in the Classroom

Abstract

To read from the perspective of gender means to consider how the socially defined portraiture to which we give the names man and woman functions in the creation, production, and reception of literature. This proposition about the social construction of gender is one of the central tenets of post-structuralist critical theory and practice. Given some of the notorious statements attributed to Samuel Johnson, such as his remark cited in Boswell's Life, 'Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all'l-a statement that students unhappily have often encountered before reading a word written by Johnson himself-he may seem to invite particular scrutiny on the subject of gender. In my teaching I do not discuss Johnson and his writing exclusively or even predominantly in terms of gender. Yet over the past six or seven years of my eighteen years in the classroom, issues of gender have become increasingly focal in the ways both I and my students read. My aim in this essay, as in the classroom, is not simply either to condemn or acquit Johnson on charges of sexism. His political correctness, as such, is not my subject, although a verdict on this subject is almost inevitably a byproduct of such discussion. Rather, my aim is the more encompassing one of offering some terms for a more ranging and fruitful discussion of Johnson. This discussion, I believe, identifies aspects both of his work and of the historical transmission of his image that we might otherwise overlook or consider unimportant. It sheds light equally on Johnson himself, on his