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from Part II - Social, Cultural, and Intellectual Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2024
The Literary Club, often simply known as ‘The Club’, was founded by Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds in 1764. The Club has been understood as the epitome of a strain of Enlightenment clubbability, modelled on earlier eighteenth-century ideals of conversation and channelling them into a new form of argument-as-sport. However, Goldsmith’s experiences of being often ridiculed at meetings can help counterbalance heroic accounts of the club by foregrounding a tendency to cruelty in this celebrated institution. This chapter provides a more balanced account of the Club than we are used to, one that insists on Goldsmith’s centrality to its activities, not only as a founding member and successful product of its cultural networking, but also as a figure who exposes the dual nature of the Club.
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