The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia | Emrys Jones (essay date 1967)
Emrys Jones (essay date 1967)
SOURCE: "The Artistic Form of Rasselas," in The Review of English Studies, n.s., Vol. XVIII, No. 72, November, 1967, pp. 387-401.
[In the following essay, Jones argues that a three-part structure, rather than the usual division of Rasselas into two unequal parts, reflects more accurately Johnson's original intent for this work.]
Johnson's powers as a poet are more readily appreciated than they were fifty years ago. But the artistry of Rasselas is still too little recognized. The traditional reading of the book speaks of it as a species of sober discourse, and finds its unity—if it has one—in its mood or temper, that of a philosophical pessimism. To approach Rasselas in terms of its apparent sentiments may be misleading; for where a work has the degree of organization that, I suggest, may be found in Rasselas, the bearing of its statements cannot be clear until their...
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