The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, often abbreviated to Rasselas, is an apologue about happiness by Samuel Johnson. The book's original working title was “The Choice of Life".[1] He wrote the piece to help support his seriously ill mother with an intended completion date of January 22, 1759 (the eve of his mother's death).[1] The book was first published in April 1759 in England. Johnson is believed to have received a total of £75 for the copyright. The first American edition followed in 1768. The title page of this edition carried a quotation, inserted by the publisher Robert Bell, from La Rochefoucauld: “The labour or Exercise of the Body, freeth Man from the Pains of the Mind; and this constitutes the Happiness of the Poor”.[1]
Johnson was influenced by the vogue for exotic locations. He had translated A Voyage to Abyssinia by Jeronimo Lobo in 1735 and used it as the basis for what was described as a "philosophical romance". Ten years prior to writing Rasselas he published “The Vanity of Human Wishes” in which he describes the inevitable defeat of worldly ambition. It was considered by early readers as a work of philosophical and practical importance and critics often remark on the difficulty of classifying Rasselas as a novel.[1] Johnson was a staunch opponent of slavery, revered by abolitionists, and Rasselas became a name adopted by emancipated slaves.[1]
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While the story is thematically similar to Candide by Voltaire — both concern young men traveling in the company of honored teachers, encountering and examining human suffering in an attempt to determine the root of happiness — their root concerns are distinctly different. Voltaire was very directly satirizing the widely-read philosophical work by Gottfried Leibniz, particularly the Theodicee, in which Leibniz asserts that the world, no matter how we may perceive it, is necessarily the "best of all possible worlds", whereas the question Rasselas confronts most directly is whether or not humanity is essentially capable of attaining happiness. Writing as a devout Christian, Johnson makes through his characters no blanket attacks on the viability of a religious response to this question, as Voltaire does, and while the story is in places light and humorous, it is not a piece of satire, as is Candide.
The plot is simple in the extreme. Rasselas, son of the King of Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia), is shut up in a beautiful valley, “till the order of succession should call him to the throne.” He grows weary of the factitious entertainments of the place, and after much brooding escapes with his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac. They are to see the world and search for happiness, but after some sojourn in Egypt, where they frequent various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia.[2]
Local color is almost nonexistent and episodic elements, e.g. the story of Imlac and that of the mad astronomer, abound. There is little of incident, no love-making, with few endeavors to charm the fancy, and with but slight recognition of the claims of sentiment.[2]
One of the more famous quotations from this story is of the character Imlac:
| “ | That the dead are seen no more ... I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages and all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears. | ” |
Other famous quotations include:
"Be not too hasty...to trust or to admire, the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men."[3]
"No man can say he is wretched by my persuasion."[4]
"The truth is, that no mind is much employed upon the present: recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments."[5]
"Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives."[6]
"A youth or maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude they shall be happy together."[7]
"Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason."[8]
"Youth is delighted with applause, because it is considered as the earnest of some future good, and because the prospect of life is far extended."[9]
"Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world."[10]
"What can be expected but disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in the ardour of desire, without judgment, without forsight, without enquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment."[11]
"He that has much to do will do something wrong, and of that wrong must suffer the consequences; and, if it were possible that he should always act rightly, yet when such numbers are to judge of his conduct, the bad will censure and obstruct him by malevolence, and the good sometimes by mistake."[12]
"We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself."[13]
Irvin Ehrenpesis sees an aged Johnson's reflecting on lost youth in the character of Rasselas who is exiled from Happy Valley. Rasselas' has also been viewed as a reflection of Johnson's melancholia projected on to the wider world, particularly at the time of his mother's death. Hester Piozzi saw in part Johnson in the character of Imlac who is rejected in his courtship by a class conscious social superior.[1] Thomas Keymer sees beyond the conventional Roman à clef interpretations to call it a work that reflects the wider geo-political world in the year of publication (1759): the year in which “Britain became master of the world”.[1] Rasselas is seen to express an hostility to the rising imperialism of his day and who rejects stereotypical “orientalist” viewpoints that justified colonialism. Johnson himself was regarded as a prophet who opposed imperialism, who described the Anglo-French war for America as a dispute between two thieves over the proceeds of a robbery.[1]
Rasselas is mentioned numerous times in later notable literature.
The community of Rasselas, Pennsylvania, located in Elk County, was named after Rasselas Wilcox Brown, whose father, Isaac Brown, Jr., was fond of Johnson's story.[15]
A Vale (or Valley) named after Rasselas is located in Tasmania within the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park Latitude (DMS): 42° 34' 60 S Longitude (DMS): 146° 19' 60 E[16]
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