The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Vanity of Human Wishes
The Vanity of Human Wishes
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The Poem …show more content…
Themes and Meanings
In the thirty-second issue of his periodical, The Rambler (1750), Johnson wrote, “The armies of pain send their arrows against us on every side; the choice is only between those which are more or less sharp, or tinged with poison of greater or less malignity; and the strongest armour which reason can supply, will only blunt their points, but cannot repel them.” This same tragic sense pervades The Vanity of Human Wishes; indeed, the controlling metaphor of the Rambler passage is an elaboration on the poem’s central thesis: “Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart” (line 15). As Johnson implies through his use of antithesis, wealth, power, learning, glory, longevity, beauty—all that this world offers—prove vain because these things deceive. Johnson does not suggest that if they could endure they would yield happiness. The poem recognizes that the things of
Forms and Devices
2
The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Vanity of Human Wishes this world pass away and laments the mutability of existence. Even when these gifts are at their greatest, though, they breed discontent. The more the wealth, the less the tranquillity of the possessor; the …show more content…
The gifts are flawed, as are those who seek them. At the beginning of the poem, Johnson speaks of “wavering man” (line 7). Human happiness is ultimately impossible, because one always wants more than what one has.
Sweden’s Charles XII cannot rest until all is his “beneath the polar sky” (line 204). Wolsey gains so much power that “conquest unresisted ceased to please” (line 107). The irony in the poem reflects the irony of the world and its inhabitants.
Although Johnson draws on Juvenal and invokes Democritus, his poem is less satire than tragedy. Whereas the original, for example, mocks the old man with his dripping nose and toothless gums, the
The Vanity of Human Wishes
©2008 eNotes.com, Inc. or its Licensors. Please see copyright information at the end of this document.
The Poem …show more content…
Themes and Meanings
In the thirty-second issue of his periodical, The Rambler (1750), Johnson wrote, “The armies of pain send their arrows against us on every side; the choice is only between those which are more or less sharp, or tinged with poison of greater or less malignity; and the strongest armour which reason can supply, will only blunt their points, but cannot repel them.” This same tragic sense pervades The Vanity of Human Wishes; indeed, the controlling metaphor of the Rambler passage is an elaboration on the poem’s central thesis: “Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart” (line 15). As Johnson implies through his use of antithesis, wealth, power, learning, glory, longevity, beauty—all that this world offers—prove vain because these things deceive. Johnson does not suggest that if they could endure they would yield happiness. The poem recognizes that the things of
Forms and Devices
2
The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Vanity of Human Wishes this world pass away and laments the mutability of existence. Even when these gifts are at their greatest, though, they breed discontent. The more the wealth, the less the tranquillity of the possessor; the …show more content…
The gifts are flawed, as are those who seek them. At the beginning of the poem, Johnson speaks of “wavering man” (line 7). Human happiness is ultimately impossible, because one always wants more than what one has.
Sweden’s Charles XII cannot rest until all is his “beneath the polar sky” (line 204). Wolsey gains so much power that “conquest unresisted ceased to please” (line 107). The irony in the poem reflects the irony of the world and its inhabitants.
Although Johnson draws on Juvenal and invokes Democritus, his poem is less satire than tragedy. Whereas the original, for example, mocks the old man with his dripping nose and toothless gums, the