rasselas_samuel johnson_outline
TRANSCRIPT
Rasselas_Samuel Johnson__NAEL 9th ed. Larry Isitt, PhD, Eastern Washington University, ENGL 341 Brit Lit 2
This guide is to be done only in Times-Roman 12 font.
Directions This study guide is both an outline of the chapters in Rasselas and a series of
questions for you to respond to. The questions are indicated by underlined chapter headings
followed by capital letters, A, B, C, D and so on. Reproduce these exactly as you see them
below. Download each question separately (do not download A, B, C, together all bunched up).
So, for example, the first set of questions comes from chapter 3. Download the heading Chapter
3 questions and then underneath handle the first question A by downloading it from this guide,
putting it in bold font. Then respond in un-bolded font in a good-sized paragraph (some 50-75
words at most, but you may go longer if the question allows for a longer response). Then proceed
to letter B and do the same thing. You must have at least one brief quotation for each response
with page number from the Norton text inside parentheses following. Sometimes the questions I
ask will be lengthy, but you are to download the whole without shortening. I am asking you to
download the questions so that I can see you know what you are writing about exactly, and so
that if you fail to handle a part of a question I may be able to highlight that portion in my
response to you. I send back your assignments just as you sent them—by email attachment—
with my corrections and grade.
I’ve tried to ask questions that not only demand some close reading of the text but also allow for
your own personal observations. For example, much of Rasselas keeps coming back to the
question of what it means to be happy. So I would like you to respond to the text at each point
but also I want to see what you think outside the text itself whenever you can do so. Surely you
can think of some things or ideas of our time that bring out the truth of what Johnson is saying in
this philosophical fable. Such touchstones with our culture now may be seen in song lyrics or
movies or art works you’ve seen or heard. Collaborate with your neighbor should you wish, but
do your own thinking and reporting (see my warning in the syllabus regarding stealing).
Page references are to Norton 9th ed of Anthology of English Literature, vols C (Restoration and
Eighteenth Century and D (The Romantic Period). Page numbers differ in both volumes.
Helps.
Johnson’s dictionary is online at http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?page_id=7070
Johnson’s Rasselas is online at http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/rasselas.html#24
LIFE IN HAPPY VALLEY, chapters 1-14
1. Abyssinia. Describes the Happy Valley, its isolation from the outside world, surrounded
by mountains and filled with every physical desire fulfilled in fruits, music, pleasures of
eye and sound; no evils, no beasts of prey to disturb the tranquility. Rasselas is one of the
princes of Abyssinia. Every year for 8 days the emperor commands the iron gates be
opened and those on the outside be admitted to entertain. Those deemed worthy of
staying stay and become themselves the new prisoners in this paradise.
2. Abyssinia. Instructors in Happy Valley tell the inhabitants of the miseries of the world
outside. Rasselas goes away for solitary walks to get away from the songs and pleasures
of the company of royalty. He laments that his life is less happy than that of the animals
he observes. He is full to the brim with pleasures around him, yet is not pleased. “I can
discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure,
yet I do not feel myself delighted” (2859). His observations have thoughts similar to
those we see in the Bible at Ecclesiastes 1-2, and with Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse”
(D 171) and Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” (D 927)
3. Abyssinia. Rasselas to his old instructor: “I fly from pleasure because pleasure has
ceased to please” (2860).
Chapter 3 questions:
A. If you do not lack any material thing or pleasure in life, how can your life be
unhappy?
B. How is it possible that unlimited pleasures actually drain us of the ability to be
pleased?
C. The old instructor says: “If you [Rasselas] had seen the miseries of the world you
would know how to value your present state.” Do you think this is so? Is it
necessary to see or experience the miseries of the world around us in order to be
really contented with the condition of our own lives? In short, do we have to
know the bad before we can enjoy the good by contrast? We would normally
think that if we saw neither war, nor sorrow, nor heartache, nor hunger, nor
murder, rape, torture, that we would be able to be happy without knowing or
experiencing these.
4. Abyssinia. Rasselas imagines but takes no action for leaving. “His chief amusement was
to picture to himself that world which he had never seen” (2861). So he wastes 20 more
months sitting around.
5. Abyssinia. Prince Rasselas explores the physical escape routes in the valley, taking 10
more months to do so. He sees he is indeed confined, but still he dreams of escaping
somehow, should a way to do so present itself.
6. Abyssinia. This chapter is a dissertation, that is, it is an extended essay on a particular
subject—here the art of flying. Rasselas questions the mechanic inventor about the
possibility of flying.
Chapter 6 questions:
D. It is a fascinating chapter that resonates in ways with our own times and ideas
about flying. Just think, Johnson could not know of flying as we know it, yet he
describes it in ways that are almost prophetic. For example, in speaking of man
one day floating in the air without any tendency to fall, we may see modern
ballooning, or we may see correspondence with the space program astronauts
“floating” inside their space capsule. What correspondences do you find here that
remind you of some modern flying? Find three and discuss.
E. Should all inventions that are good for mankind be given to all universally? Why
does the mechanic tell Rasselas that he will only develop wings for them both
privately? What is his argument regarding his conditional clause: “If all men were
virtuous […]…
7. Abyssinia. Imlac, the poet, has experience of the outside world and is called upon by
Rasselas to explain a poem he has written dealing with “the various conditions of
humanity” (2866)
8. Abyssinia. Imlac explains that he is a scholar, though his father hoped he would imitate
him and do everything possible to become rich, for being rich was all that his father
hoped for.
Chapter 8 questions:
F. Why is being a scholar not valued in the world?
G. Is it true that, as Imlac pronounces, “no form of government has yet been
discovered, by which cruelty can be wholly prevented”? (2867) Discuss. What is
Rasselas’s problem that prevents him from understanding this principle?
9. Abyssinia. Imlac tells of how his money was taken from him due to his youth and
weakness. It was easy for older men to take advantage of him because they knew things
he did not and it delighted them to cheat him just to show off their superiority.
Chapter 9 questions:
H. Rasselas asks: “Is there such depravity in man, as that he should injure another
without benefit to himself?” (2869) What is Imlac’s answer as it relates to envy
and pride? What do you think of his answer—is it valid or do you disagree?
10. Abyssinia. Imlac speaks of the power regarded to poets and poetry as the highest art.
And the more ancient the poetry, the more highly regarded it is. The later poets are mere
imitators—“But I soon found that no man was ever great by imitation.” (2870-71) The
poet pays attention to all things beautiful or dreadful in order to put across to readers
moral or religious truth. The poet “does not number the streaks of a tulip” [as might a
scientist or naturalist], but instead makes general truths known [by using any object in
nature]. The poet examines as well “all the modes of life […] the happiness and misery of
every condition.” He must be interested in the “general and transcendental truths” which
never change, not in the “present laws and opinions” (2871) [which do change from
country to country].
Chapter 10 questions:
I. In light of all of his points about poetry, what do you think Imlac is saying when
he says that the poet “must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of
mankind”? (2872) What is a legislator in this sense [check a dictionary for
possibilities that might fit here]
J. Change “poetry” to popular songs we hear on the radio (which are nothing more
than poetry set to music). Does this change your understanding of legislator? Do
popular songs change the way we think; is this how they “legislate” to us?
11. Abyssinia. Imlac tells Rasselas of his further travels in Asia, Africa, and Europe. He
spends three years in Palestine [Israel] where he observes gathering there travelers from
all the nations of northern and western Europe, and says of them that they “are now in
possession of all power and all knowledge” (2872).
Chapter 11 questions:
A. What are the relative advantages enjoyed in life by the Europeans over the Asians
and Africans?
K. Rasselas in hearing of the splendors of Europe concludes that they must be very
happy. Why does he think this? What do you make of Imlac’s last statement (in
the concluding small paragraph) regarding Europeans and humanity and
happiness and enjoyment? Are you inclined to agree or disagree? Explain.
12. Abyssinia. Rasselas, disappointed to hear of European superiority, insists that were he in
charge he would be sure to “fill every day with pleasure” (2873) and helpfulness to
others. In this condition, he would not have to worry [as kings do] about being betrayed
because were he to be attacked, he could call on the aid of thousands he has helped. The
subject is then dropped and Imlac asked to continue the narrative of his wandering life
right up to the time he applied for entrance into the happy valley. Imlac says he came in
after a life of 20 years in the world which disappointed him through its neglect. Of happy
valley he says: “Wearied at last with solicitations and repulses, I resolved to hide myself
from the world” (2874) and apply for entrance into “perpetual confinement” (2875) in the
valley. Rasselas tells Imlac his own secret longings to escape the valley, but though he
too wishes to leave, he tries to dissuade Rasselas by telling him he will come to regret it.
Rasselas insists and will not be put off by scare stories.
Chapter 12 questions:
L. “What passions can infest those who have no trials?” (2875) asks Rasselas. Why
is his question naïve in Imlac’s view? What is missing? [The idea here is in this
question: If you had all the material possessions you would want, and with no
limitations on what kind and how many you are guaranteed to receive at any time
you specify, would you be happy with such an arrangement? Rasselas seems to
think so, but Imlac says something is missing.]
13. Abyssinia. Rasselas and Imlac find an escape route out of the valley by digging.
14. Abyssinia. Nekayah, sister of Rasselas, discovers their secret digging but says she too
wishes to leave. The digging is completed and they three stand outside the valley, ready
to depart.
LEAVING THE VALLEY TO EXPLORE CHOICES OF LIFE, chapters 15-32
15. Rasselas, Nekayah and her favorite Pekuah, and Imlac leave the valley, are fearful of the
wide expanse before them (all but Imlac who has seen the world), and finally journey to
Egypt and the city of Cairo.
16. Cairo. Imlac tells Rasselas that he is going to “see all the conditions of humanity” so as
to be able to make “your choice of life” (2879) (a phrase repeated two more times). The
jewels they have brought with them allow Imlac to begin to make an impression on the
local merchants by buying a big house. Rasselas learns what money is (something he has
never had to concern himself with as a prince of Abyssinia), and takes two years learning
the language until he is fluent. For some time the prince does not think he even has to
make a choice “because all appeared to him equally happy” (2880).
Chapter 16 questions:
M. What observations about life and choice does Imlac bring out in his response to
Rasselas’s naïve belief that everybody about him appears equally happy? Discuss
his notions concerning jollity and gaiety as counterfeit and why this is so.
N. Do you personally believe that you are in charge of the decisions you make in life,
such as choosing to attend EWU, or do you agree with Imlac that “very few live
by choice”? (2880) Discuss what Imlac says and how you respond to him.
17. Cairo. Rasselas searches among the young “whose only business is to satisfy their
desires” (2882). He is disappointed in what he finds and is laughed out of their company
when he urges the young to be more temperate and thoughtful about their future.
Chapter 17 questions:
O. This question is one of paraphrasing (putting into your own words) the six
observations made in the second paragraph (2881), the one beginning, “To such
societies […]. First, quote exactly each, and second then put the meaning intended
by Johnson after each. Put your own paraphrases in italic font and number them
as you see in the example. Here is the first to show you what I mean:
1) “Their mirth was without images.”
Paraphrase: The laughter of the young was empty, without ideas [anything
of substance or importance]
2) Xxx
3) Xxx etc.
P. To what extent are you willing to agree with Johnson (i.e., Rasselas) in his
assessment of students you have observed? Refer specifically to your numbered
paraphrases
18. Cairo. Rasselas listens to a wise man, a professor at the university, who is fascinating
and has all of life’s answers. He means to make him his guide for life, but Imlac cautions:
“Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels,
but they live like men” (2882).
Chapter 18 questions:
Q. How does the professor come to disappoint Rasselas?
R. What do you make of the meaning of the last paragraph, beginning in the middle
with: “the emptiness […]? Pay attention to these words as you interpret what is
said: rhetorical, polished, studied.
S. What conclusion or warning about your classes and professors should you draw as
a student here at EWU from what Rasselas has come to conclude about the wise
man?
19. Outside of Cairo on the way to the lowest (the first) cataract of the Nile. [Note:
Johnson had only a vague idea of how far such a journey would be in actual life, but it
does not matter of course for his fable. The first cataract of the Nile is 430 miles south of
Cairo at Aswan] A long journey from Cairo to visit a hermit who they’ve heard lives on
the remote stretches of the Nile. (They will not arrive at their destination in this chapter,
but meet the hermit later in chapters 20 & 21). They meet some shepherds on the way in
the peaceful countryside, and hope to see if country life among the simple folk will be a
tranquil and rewarding one. Tending flocks looks promising but instead Rasselas, his
sister, and Imlac run into ignorant, envious men resentful of working for the rich and
inarticulate as to their own condition. “Their hearts were cankered with discontent”
(2883)
20. Outside of Cairo on the way to the lowest (the first) cataract of the Nile . The next day
they leave the shepherds behind and continue on their way. In a wood they see a palace
and are greeted by a very rich man who receives them and tells them that he has sent his
riches away to safety and that he will follow them if his enemy attacks. His temporary
security lies in the good will of those princes nearby, but who he believes may join his
enemy to plunder him when opportunity is right. Rasselas, delighted, congratulates the
prince on the happiness evident in his palace but is told: “My condition has indeed the
appearance of happiness, but appearances are delusive” (2884). They stay a couple of
days but move on to find the hermit.
21. Outside of Cairo on the way to the lowest (the first) cataract of the Nile, they arrive
at the hermit’s dwelling, a cave in the side of a mountain. The hermit’s cave and
apartments he has built into it look attractive to his visitors, but shortly they find out from
him that the life of solitude is a sad one and full of uncertainties. He wants to leave and
go out again among people, from whom he has hidden himself for 15 years in his cave.
Surprised, Rasselas, the princess, and Imlac invite him to accompany them back to Cairo.
He has treasure he has hidden and so along with them comes to the great city.
22. Cairo. Rasselas visits a discussion session of learned men. He hears six opinions they
offer about the hermit and the question of happiness. The last opinion is that of a
philosopher who says “the way to be happy is to live according to nature” (2886); and
that “to deviate from nature is deviation from happiness,” but when Rasselas asks him to
define the point all he gets in return is learned gibberish which causes him to conclude
“that he should understand less as he heard him more” (2887).
23. Cairo. Rasselas, disappointed in his discoveries of the equal ignorance he has seen
among both the simple folk and the learned, determines to continue the search anyway.
His sister, Nekayah, is of similar mind and suggests he continue his search by looking
among the high at the courts and she at the low in common life. She does not mean to
look among the peasants who are in distress and without money, but at middle-class life.
Her searches (in the next chapters beginning at 25 will be at private households, as
opposed to her brother’s at high courts)
24. At the court of the Bassa (a Turkish ruler). Following his plan, Rasselas visits the high
court of a foreign ruler living in Egypt (see chapter 20, p. 2884). The Bassa was
surrounded by spies who reported to the Sultan his every move. The Sultan deposes the
Bassa who is carried away prisoner back to Constantinople, and a second Bassa,
replacing him, is himself deposed. The Sultan himself ends up being murdered by his
own palace guards (the Janissaries). Everyone hating and plotting against everyone else
at the court, causes Rasselas to wonder at the lack of safety of even the highest of rulers.
25. Cairo. Nekayah’s searches to find happiness anywhere among private households find no
success. She concentrates on the daughters of those households.
Chapter 25 questions:
T. What are the characteristics of young girls which Nekayah notes that disappoint
her? Do you think Johnson’s descriptions of girls are nearly accurate or fair,
considered generally? Think of girls of high school age in your response and give
specifics, not just a yes or no.
26. Cairo. Nekayah continues with her explanation of what she found among families: “there
is commonly discord,” (2889) not harmony. Parents fight children, children parents;
servants boss their bosses, husbands dominate wives or wives husbands. Nekayah points
out that some avoid marriage altogether and live single; but even so, they ought not to be
envied, for “they dream away their time without friendships” (2891) and are filled with
rancor, inferiority, peevishness, malevolence toward those who are married.
27. Cairo. Nekayah’s observations in the previous chapter greatly disturb her brother
Rasselas because if what she has said regarding families is true, then disturbances are
bound to be true for kingdoms, which are but great families “torn with factions and
exposed to revolutions” (chap 26, 2890). “I have been lately, convinced that quiet is not
the daughter of grandeur, or of power” (2891), meaning that peaceful conditions, the
quiet of harmonious living together, is not the automatic result (“daughter of”) having
much political power at one’s command. Whoever commands great kingdoms must do so
by depending upon ministers to carry out the duties or rule; because these ministers have
their own agendas, some will be wicked and mislead others or betray them. If a ruler
chooses to favor someone, he will in that act cause envy and bitterness in those not so
favored. “He that has much to do will do something wrong, and of that wrong must suffer
the consequences” (2892). Kings and high administrators must always be deceived since
they have too much to judge of and to rule in too many people; better is the life lived
humbly and in obscurity, for then one can survey his own little kingdom and know those
well who serve him since they will not be many. “Surely he has nothing to do but to love
and to be loved, to be virtuous and to be happy” (2892), concludes Rasselas. But
Nekayah modifies this blessed condition by observing that bad things happen to virtuous
persons. “All natural and almost all political evils, are incident alike to the bad and good”
(2892) because they are beyond the control of anyone to know ahead of time. But there is
benefit to being a good person: “All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience, a
steady prospect of a happier state; this may enable us to endure calamity with patience;
but remember that patience must suppose pain” (2892).
28. Cairo. Nekayah and Rasselas move their discussion to the nature of argumentation in
general. “You fall into the common errors of exaggeratory declamation,” (2892) drawing
examples of national calamities from books rather than from life, and not realizing that
normal life goes on as usual. Instead of worrying about large things beyond our control or
concern, let us, he says, consider “what beings like us may perform; each laboring for his
own happiness, by promoting within his circle, however narrow, the happiness of others.”
So, let us consider marriage: Rasselas holds that it is natural for men and women to
marry, “that marriage is one of the means of happiness”; but Nekayah objects that
perhaps marriage is just another “one of the innumerable modes of human misery”
(2893). The causes of unhappiness (infelicity) in marriage are too numerous to see
clearly. And the mind, like the eye when it looks at vastness [like the heavens] and cannot
see it whole and clearly enough to discern the parts, is unable to take in the whole subject
of marriage. Rasselas says that Nekayah has too easily and quickly dismissed the whole
institution of marriage based on the unhappiness in some marriages; the whole cannot be
judged by the parts. [Note: the error in classical logic touching on Nekayah is called
“hasty generalization” or “jumping to conclusions.” Suppose, for example, you have a
rattle in the trunk of your Ford, and you say, “these darn Fords,” as though to condemn
all from your one encounter. What Rasselas is cautioning Nekayah not to do is to
condemn all marriage from the few examples she sites].
29. Cairo. Rasselas and Nekayah continue their debate on marriage. In the previous chapter
Rasselas observed: “Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature; men and women were
made to be companions of each other” (2893). This is the remark that set Nekayah off to
begin with. Rasselas is still faulting her logic at the outset of this chapter when he
observes: “The good of the whole [institution of marriage] is the same with the good of
all its parts [that is good for each individual marriage]” (2894) Rasselas insists that the
problems in marriage could be remedied if only the young did not get married for the
wrong reasons and just thought and delayed for a while longer. The problems begun thus
hastily show up later when the kids start coming of age: the son rivals the father, the
daughter her mother. But Nekayah objects: “late marriages are not eminently happy”
(2894). She then gives some 10 or more reasons why late marriages cannot really work
since both partners have settled habits and opinions. Rasselas thinks that when he chooses
a wife the first question to her will be “whether she be willing to be led by reason.” But
Nekayah objects that there are many problems in marriage “which reason can never
decide” (2895). Just look at mankind generally and you will observe how few actions are
determined by the participants have reasons ready for their actions. Marriages would be
very unhappy and miserable were every action for the day to be determined in the
morning by reason. One can see both benefits and disadvantages of early or late marriage,
says Nekayah, but one cannot have all the benefits and no disadvantages. Delaying too
long you will make no choices at all; it is best, she ends, that “of the blessings set before
you make your choice and be content” (2895).
30. Cairo. Is the present more important to us than the past? Rasselas and Nekayah both
advocate for the present and think they have nothing to learn from the past. But Imlac
gives them convincing reasons not to neglect the past for “To judge rightly of the present
we must oppose it to the past; for all judgment is comparative” (2896). Egypt is his great
proof since all Europe learned from studying its arts and architecture. Nekayah and
Rasselas are convinced enough to want to go see the pyramids.
31. Pyramids. They leave the next day. The pyramid and its narrow entrance cause great fear
to Nekayah’s favorite Pekuah who thinks that to enter will disturb the dead and she will
not survive. A brief debate ensues and Nekayah cannot persuade Pekuah to enter.
Rasselas says that the dead are dead and do not come alive to harm us. Imlac argues that
the dead are well testified by experience around the world: “That the dead are seen no
more I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of
all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions
of the dead are not related and believed” (2898).
32. Pyramids. They enter, all but Pekuah who retreats to the tent to await their return. Imlac
immediately pronounces the pyramids a worthless monument to the boredom of kings
who can think of nothing more than to pile one stone on another to no purpose. The Great
Wall of China at least was built with a purpose to keep out enemies, but the pyramids
serve no such purpose. Imlac bursts out suddenly to an imaginary audience of those
admiring the pharaohs: All who think royal magnificence and riches and novelty can
provide an unending source of “perpetual gratifications, survey the pyramids, and confess
thy folly!” (2899).
CONCLUDING ADVENTURES, CHAPTERS 33-49
Pekuah Captured and Returned, chapters 33-39
33. Pyramids. Pekuah (along with her maids) is captured by Arabs while the party was
inside the pyramid; Turkish horsemen give chase but the Arabs get away and Pekuah is
lost, seemingly forever. Nekayah distraught.
34. Cairo. They return from the pyramids, not knowing Pekuah’s fate. Two months pass and
Nekayah rebukes herself for not making Pekuah enter the pyramid where she would not
have encountered the Arabs who took her. But Imlac comforts her by pointing out that
she did her duty and had not forced Pekuah into the pyramid where she might have died
of terror, nor did she order Pekuah to stay in the tent, which would then have been her
fault and guilt at her capture. No, says Imlac, you cannot blame yourself for your virtue.
35. Cairo. Nekayah grieves for Pekuah who she fears is dead. She blames herself and says
she will go on grieving without end in solitude, withdrawing from the world. Imlac does
not think that course wise to pursue, reminding her of what solitude had not
accomplished for the hermit [see chapter 21] and neither does Rasselas. In the end,
Nekayah agrees to wait a year before she carries out her vow to retreat from the public
while the search for her friend continues.
36. Cairo. Nekayah retreats daily to her room to cry and remember Pekuah, but as the days
and months pass, she less and less stays her course, and eventually abandons her daily
retreat. Her new path is one in which she says one should not make too intimate the
connections between oneself and others for fear that fondness will cause hurt like she felt
at the loss of Pekuah.
37. Cairo/St. Anthony’s Monastery (Egypt). 7 months pass. Pekuah found and ransomed
from an Arab for 200 ounces of gold in Nubia. Pekuah is transported as agreed to St.
Anthony’s monastery in Egypt and there the exchange is made. Rasselas demands that
Pekuah tell her tale of captivity.
38. St. Anthony’s Monastery (Egypt). Safe, Pekuah tells her tale. She and her maids are
treated honorably by the Arab who declares himself of “the sons of Ishamael,” thus
identifying himself as Muslim. He has no desire to mistreat the women but only to use
them as ransom to increase his riches.
39. St. Anthony’s Monastery (Egypt). Pekuah continues her account. The Arab continues
courteous, even desiring to instruct her from one of the towers in his fortress about the
stars at night. Pekuah goes along with all of this so as not to be uncooperative. She is
asked by Nekayah why she sat alone, apart from the Arab women and did not talk with
them to relieve her melancholy. Pekuah is not at all impressed by the ignorant women
who had little more on their minds but dancing and gossiping and vying for attention.
They had no knowledge of anything outside of their situation and so could not converse
with Pekuah about her interests. Rasselas cannot understand how the Arab, whom Pekuah
represents as intelligent, puts up with these women. “Are they exquisitely beautiful?”
(2908). She responds: “They do not want [lack] that unaffecting and ignoble beauty
which may subsist without spriteliness or sublimity, without energy of thought or dignity
of virtue. But to a man like the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually plucked and
carelessly thrown away” (2908). [Johnson’s heavy prose obscures for us what Pekuah is
evidently saying, which is something like this: Oh yes, they are beautiful, but only as
flowers are beautiful, or ornaments. But the kind of beauty they possess is not enhanced
by thought or loftiness or grandeur or dignity or cheerfulness which might strike strongly
the feelings of, in this case, the Arab. He thus neglects them and is unaffected by them.]
40. Cairo. Astronomer. Rasselas “began to love learning,” (2909) and so decides that the
life of a literary man devoted to reading and gaining knowledge is just what he would like
to do. Imlac begins to tell him of a man of learning, a great astronomer, who has been
leading a life of solitary study of the stars, and with whom Imlac spent a great deal of
time and conversation. Nekayah says “surely this man is happy” (2910), but Imlac says
that at first he thought so too; but the more time he spends with the astronomer, he
suspects that something is being held back.
41. Cairo. Astronomer. The astronomer tells Imlac that his secret has been that for the past
five years he has been in charge of “the regulation of the weather,” to include movement
of the sun and of clouds and rain, all but the winds which have not cooperated and have
“refused my authority” (2911)
42. Cairo. Astronomer. Imlac hears him say he has had this wondrous power to regulate the
year, its seasons, rain and sun for the past 10 years. It just came to him one day to
command a rainfall, and soon thereafter the rain came. He recognizes Imlac’s incredulity,
but thinks him wise enough to “distinguish the wonderful from the impossible, and the
incredible from the false” (2912). He tells Imlac that he is old and is looking for a
successor to be regulator of the year, and finds that none of the persons he has spoken
with are as worthy of the honor (or burden) as is Imlac.
43. Cairo. Astronomer. Imlac hears what he is commanded to do in regulating the weather.
Rasselas is seriously considering the story, whereas Nekayah, Pekuah and the maids
break out in laughter at the obvious insanity of the astronomer. Imlac brings them about
to the seriousness of what has happened to this fine good man whose great knowledge
has brought him this end. Few will ever attain this man’s knowledge, says Imlac, but all
may end up like the astronomer by losing their grip on sanity. “Of the uncertainties of our
present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason”.
Rasselas, deeply affected, asks Imlac “whether he thought such maladies of the mind
frequent, and how they were contracted” (2912)
44. Cairo. Astronomer. The answer from Imlac to Rasselas’s question is that insanity is
caused by imagination coming to dominate over reason. Chapters 40-44 have all been in
answer (warning) to Rasselas’s thought (in chapter 40) that a life of solitude is the best
choice to make for happiness. Look what happened to the astronomer. Look what
happened to the hermit (chapters 20, 21). Key words in this chapter that are opposed to
reason and sober probability include: imagination, fancy, fiction, boundless futurity,
imaginable conditions, impossible enjoyments, unattainable dominion, luscious
falsehoods, false opinions, dreams of rapture.
Chapter 44 questions:
U. What Johnson is playing with in these chapters on the astronomer’s tragedy is the
idea that too much dreaming in our lives corrupts reality. Discuss this theme as it
plays out in:
1) The astronomer (describe the steps to his insanity)
2) Pekuah (her resolution; how does she say she is going to think differently
after hearing Imlac’s tale?)
3) Nekayah (what is her resolution?)
4) Rasselas (what is his resolution)
V. Do you sometimes think you spend too much time dreaming or amusing yourself
in various ways such that they interfere with the time you must study? (no wrong
answer here, just your opinions)
45. Cairo. Old Man. Is there better hope in old age than in youth that promises happiness?
Rasselas, Nekayah, Pekuah, and Imlac meet an old man, invite him home with them, and
hope to hear him say that his old age has given him comfort. “To me, the world has lost
its novelty,” (2914) he says. The things and people he enjoyed in his younger days no
longer are there for him since he must soon die. Praise, he says, is just “an empty sound”
(2915) since there is no one left of his mother or friends to be impressed with his honors.
He hopes his death will bring him to a better state.
46. Cairo. Astronomer. Nekayah and Pekuah still think about the astronomer that Imlac has
told them of, and they wish to have him introduce them, which, after awhile he agrees to
do. Pekuah particularly wishes the acquaintance, hoping to see him mad. But the
astronomer is delighted with her questions as his student. By degrees his isolation
disappears as he often comes to Imlac’s house and is advised by him, such that even his
madness about being the regulator of the seasons fades to a controllable level where he
recognizes he has been mad. Keep busy, says Imlac, so that you push away by activity or
visiting with Pekuah the dark thoughts, the melancholia, that afflict you.
47. Cairo. Astronomer. Catacombs. The astronomer agrees with Imlac, saying: “I hope that
time and variety will dissipate the gloom that has so long surrounded me, and the latter
part of my days will be spent in peace” (2918). Rasselas introduces a new topic: the
monks he saw happy at the monastery of St. Anthony’s (see chapter 37). The new
question asked by Nekayah of Imlac: “Do you think that the monastic rule is a more holy
and less imperfect state than any other?” (2919). Is it not possible to be equally so on the
outside of a monastery, engaged in public life? Imlac thinks it possible and says that
though a good life lived on the outside is preferable for those who can resist evil, for the
weak and timid pushed around by life the retreat to a life lived in isolation preferable. On
the outside are pleasures which may become harmful. Johnson’s prose here is heavy and
needs some untangling: “The liberty of using harmless pleasures, proceeded Imlac, will not be disputed;
but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless. The evil of any pleasure that Nekayah can image is
not in the act itself, but in its consequences. Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by
endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that,
of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end.
Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of
sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and
security without restraint.” (2919-20) [My translation: “We are free to use harmless pleasures,
if we know what they are. Pleasure by itself is not harmful, but what follows from
pleasures we indulge may be because they cause us to forget that they are only temporary
and disappearing from us even as we use them. In a sense they are tests or trials
(probatory) of our common sense which always tells us to return our thoughts to a more
serious vein. Pleasures soften that common sense and sidetrack us into forgetting to exam
our lives. Continual indulgence in pleasure causes us to forget our mortality, which we
are hourly drawing nearer to death. Mortification (punishing the body physically in order
to concentrate the mind on things not physical) is only useful in that it causes us to forget
the attractiveness of doing things pleasurable. We will not have to worry about pleasure
or mortification in the life after death because there (heaven) there will be no dangers to
pleasures.” This may not reflect all that Johnson had in mind, but it is all I can provide.]
Rasselas, concerned with his sister’s continual meditation on the possibility of a monastic
life of retreat, asks the astronomer to suggest something that might help in dissuading her
from her intention. “Among the wonders of this country are the catacombs” (2920) or
tombs of the mummified generations of the past. Rasselas likes this idea and proposes a
journey to visit them. So they leave Cairo and go to see the dead. Pekuah will not be left
behind this time but descends with the rest. The astronomer accompanies them.
48. Catacombs. Why do the Egyptians embalm the dead when other nations do not? asks
Rasselas. The astronomer and Imlac enter into a long digression on the state of the soul
after death, whether or not it be material or immaterial, whether there be an eternal
duration of existence of the soul, and other philosophical speculation. In the end the party
is quiet in the face of all the dead who were taken in the midst of ordinary life, just as
Rasselas and the others are leading. There is comfort in knowing the Christian idea of
eternal life that the pagan Egyptians never knew. “Let us return, said Rasselas, from this
scene of mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions of the dead to him who did not
know that he shall never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now
thinks shall think on for ever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the
powerful of antient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state; they
were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life.” “To
me, said the princess, the choice of life is become less important; I hope hereafter to think
only on the choice of eternity.” (2922)
49. Cairo. The Nile in flood stage confines the party to the house where they converse about
all they had seen and entertain ideas of the choice of life to which they were variously
attracted. Pekuah wants to go back to the convent of St. Anthony’s and head up an order
of monastic women. Nekayah wants to start a college for learned women. Rasselas wants
to govern a kingdom but cannot decide on how large it will be. Imlac and the astronomer
have no fixed ideas and are willing to drift as life leads. “Of these wishes that they had
formed they well knew that none could be obtained” (2923).
Chapter 49 questions:
W. What do you think about Johnson’s ending? Does the story satisfy you or leave
you unsatisfied?