Ștefan Roxana Anul III Română-Engleză: The Castle of Otranto

Ștefan Roxana
Anul III
Română-Engleză
Rasselas
By Samuel Johnson
Rasselas is a difficult text to pin down,it resists genre ,which is a way of characterizing forms
of art like stories or music .The novel was still in its infancy .
Certainly, Johnson seems to have conveyed to his readers the idea that no single philosophy
of life can sustain all cultures and that no particular lifestyle can become permanently
satisfying.
This philosophy might lead people to believe that life is essentially an exercise in futility and
wasted energy. The vanity of human wishes theme, however, as manipulated by Johnson,
also allows for considerable positive interpretations that serve to balance its darker
side. In Rasselas , Johnson does not deny the value of human being. Rasselas is often
categorized as an Oriental romance.
This genre was popular in the 18th century, as it deviated from high-minded neoclassical
literature and featured heavy helpings of eroticism, adventure, and exoticism, all set in
faraway Asian or Middle Eastern lands. The Arabian Nights served as inspiration for many
European writers.
Most students today are probably familiar with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”
(1816), but there are many other works that typify the genre. Clara Reeve’s The History of
Charoba, Queen of Egypt (1785), translator Antoine Galland’s Persian and Turkish tales,
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto(1765), and Joseph Addison’s The Vision of
Mirza (1711) are all examples of Oriental romances that utilized stereotypes and fantastical
imagery to establish the conventions of the genre. The apotheosis of the genre is commonly
assumed to be William Beckford’s Vathek: An Arabian Tale (1782), a massively popular
work.
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Ștefan Roxana
Anul III
Română-Engleză
The inexhaustible capacity of the imagination (including specific hopes and wishes) emerges
as the main source of most human desires, an indispensable ingredient for human happiness.
According to both the poet of Ecclesiastes and Samuel Johnson, however, human happiness
must be controlled by reality, which is also the primary source of most human
misery. Therefore, the line dividing happiness and enjoyment from pain, suffering, and
torment remains thin and sometimes even indistinct.
Johnson chose to clothe his moral speculations in a form particularly popular among fellow
eighteenth century speculators: the Oriental tale, a Western genre that had come into vogue
during the earlier Augustan Age.
Its popularity was based on Westerners' fascination with the Orient: Writers set down
translations, pseudotranslations, and imitations of Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Chinese tales
as backdrops for brief but direct moral lessons.
Although the themes of Oriental tales tended toward the theoretical and the abstract, writers
of the period tried to confront real and typical issues with which the majority of readers came
into contact.
The recurrence of delusion is a key theme in Rasselas.
Rasselas's journey to his "choice of life" – Johnson's original title for the novel, in fact – leads
him to question the peaceful, pastoral lives of shepherds (actually ignorant and rude), a
solitary hermit (ready to enter the world again after the interminable nature of solitude
manifests itself), intellectuals (full of sound and fury), and those in the high royal court
(beleaguered by scandal and subterfuge).
Johnson's writings in the Rambler similarly paid testament to his understanding that

extremes of life, such as withdrawing from the world completely, do not often yield bliss.
Critics also point to Johnson's derision for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his belief that a "life
led according to nature" (51) is an impossibility; he scoffed at freethinkers and deists with
their "comfortable platitudes," as Johnson critic Thomas Keymer noted.
Of course, it is clear that Johnson believed celibacy was less preferable than marriage.
He gives Rasselas the last word of, "Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures"
(59), and was quoted by Boswell as saying, "even ill assorted marriages were preferable to
cheerless celibacy."
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Ștefan Roxana
Anul III
Română-Engleză
Johnson also wrote in the Rambler that "I am afraid that whether married or unmarried, we
shall find the vesture of territorial existence more heavy and cumbrous, the longer it is worn."
These comments reinforce Johnson's overall theme that nearly all conditions of life can be
onerous, and there is no guarantee of happiness.
The curiosity which drives man into the world is given a religious turn here,which recognisez
the vanity of attachment to place .
Another theme is solitude, glimpsed in Rasselas's discontent in the happy valley, the hermit's
uncomfortable exile, and the astronomer's mental instability.
Norman also identifies "the importance of diversification, the problem of good government,
and the related issue of marriage and the domestic sphere."
All of these are themes found multiple times throughout the text, mentioned once and then
looped back to. Overall the "technique is not linear...rather, it is circular, forming what one
critic perceived as a 'spiral' pattern in the narrative."
And, when the novel concludes with its starting anti-conclusion, it resembles a fugue
because that musical form also ends abruptly.
One of the common themes in the critical literature on the novel is that of its structure (also
see the summary and analysis for Chapters 37-49).
Rose Norman writes about how Johnson used the technique of the fugue to structure his
work. The fugal form is one built on "repetition, balance, and counterpoint."
There is a "continuous forward movement," not merely a series of discrete

movements. Rasselas uses repetition of themes and motifs, with the most obvious being "the
pilgrimage in pursuit of happiness that constitutes the main theme of the tale." Imlac's
journey mirrors Rasselas's.
The problem of grief is another recurring theme, with the experience of Nekayah echoed in
that of the Stoic philosopher who lost his daughter.
In the other hand,Samuel Johnson `s Rasselas is a very important novel for English Literature
,and this novel is specific for that period England.
[Type text]
Ștefan Roxana
Anul III
Română-Engleză
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Ștefan Roxana

The recurrence of delusion is a key theme in Rasselas.

Johnson's writings in the Rambler similarly paid testament to his understanding that

There is a "continuous forward movement," not merely a series of discrete

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