The Johnson Society of Australia

The 2007 David Fleeman Memorial Lecture was delivered to an enthusiastic audience by Dr Paul Tankard, the JSA’s Editor, and Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Otago, Dunedin. Otago is now able to boast of two Fleeman lecturers among its numbers (Professor Chris Ackerley being the 2006 lecturer). Paul’s subject, clearly a first survey of an ever-expandable work in progress, was entitled “Reference Point: Samuel Johnson and the Encyclopaedias.”

Johnson, of course, was keenly interested in the business of organising knowledge involving what he called ‘that muddling work’, the tasks of searching out and of organising large fields of knowledge which supported the brilliant criticism contained in the Lives of the Poets, or the fundamental research which made possible the  astonishingly creative Dictionary-- both being outstanding examples of the encyclopaedic instincts of Johnson and also of his age (one thinks of Blair, Reynolds, Burney and others).

The JSA was very well represented at the recent conference held at Pembroke College, Oxford on June 21-23 when some 50 ardent Johnsonians gathered to consider the topic of “Johnson and the Theatre”. The JSA members present were Barrie and Fay Shepherd and John Byrne.

Over the three days the participants were given a superb insight into 18^th century theatre in all its aspects, from the formality of Drury Lane under Garrick to the fringe theatre of Southwark Fair, with its rowdy and riotous behaviour of the audience (who seemed to be as much a part of the spectacle as they were spectators) and the ever present prostitutes and pimps who made the theatre crowds their willing prey.