Boswell and the educative self

Abstract

This research is a disquisition upon the nature of auto-biographical identity by way of an examination of part of the life and thought of one of the most significant of biographers - James Boswell. Focusing on Boswell’s private journal of his early adult and middle years, from 1762 to the late 1770s, the study extrapolates from these and other readings to bring forth aspects of Boswell which have not been previously accented.

What emerges is a complex character, in many ways both arrogant and humble, who also suffered from a debilitating mental condition, known to his century as hypochondria. This condition, which Boswell believes was inherited but to which he may have been psychologically pre-disposed owing to the affective conditions of his early years, expressed itself in episodes of gloom and despondency. In spite of these, Boswell was able to sustain his efforts in fields as varied as the personal, the social, the financial, the literary - not to mention the amatory - as part of his desire to improve aspects of his often impetuous selfhood. This impulse towards betterment was integral to Boswell’s nature, as was his need to seek out a mentor on whose wisdom he could rely. Boswell’s restless questing nature, with its many falls from grace, is the revelation of his early journals.

This study is essentially a re-assessment of the historical Boswell, presenting him in the light of his own understanding of himself and as such is a contribution to auto-biographical studies.

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