The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Rasselas Prince of Abissinia

Cover of corrected Second Edition of 1759
Author Samuel Johnson
Original title The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Apologue, Theodicy, Fable
Publisher R. and J. Dodsley, W. Johnston
Publication date
 April 1759
Media type Print

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, originally titled The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale, though 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 in only one week to help pay the costs of his mother's funeral, intending to complete it on 22 January 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 Jerónimo Lobo in 1735 and used it as the basis for a "philosophical romance".[2] Ten years prior to writing Rasselas he published The Vanity of Human Wishes in which he describes the inevitable defeat of worldly ambition. Early readers considered Rasselas to be a work of philosophical and practical importance and critics often remark on the difficulty of classifying it as a novel.[1] Johnson was a staunch opponent of slavery, revered by abolitionists, and Rasselas became a name adopted by emancipated slaves.[1]

Overview

While the story is thematically similar to Candide by Voltaire, also published early in 1759 – both concern young men travelling in the company of honoured 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 satirising 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". In contrast 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.

Plot

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".[3] 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 encounter various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia.[4]

Local color is almost nonexistent and the main story is primarily episodic.[4]

Influences

Irvin Ehrenpreis sees an aged Johnson 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 hostility to the rising imperialism of his day and to reject 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] Although many have argued that the book Rasselas had nothing to do with Abyssinia, and that Samuel Johnson chose Abyssinia as a locale for no other reason than wanting to write an anti-orientalist fantasy, some have begun to argue that the book has a deep tie to Ethiopian thought due to Johnson's translation of A Voyage to Abyssinia and his lifelong interest in its Christianity.[5][6] Other scholars have argued that Johnson was influenced, at least in part, by other texts, including works by Herodotus [7] and Paradise Lost.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

Radio adaptation

A radio adaptation of Rasselas by Jonathan Holloway was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 24 May 2015,[14] with Ashley Zhangazha as Rasselas, Jeff Rawle as Samuel Johnson, and Lucian Msamati as the poet Imlac. Cynthia Erivo made her BBC radio drama debut as Princess Nekayah.[15]

The drama was recorded at Dr Johnson's House, 17 Gough Square, in the City of London.[16] Sound design was by David Chilton, and the drama was introduced by Celine Luppo McDaid, Curator, Dr Johnson's House.[17] It was produced and directed by Amber Barnfather.[15]

Cast

Legacy

Continuations

Rasselas was a popular jumping-off point for continuations in the latter 18th century:[18]

Literature

Rasselas is mentioned numerous times in later notable literature:

The description of the Happy Valley is very similar to the poem "Kubla Kahn" written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge around a century later.

Locations

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.[23]

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.[24]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Keymer 2009.
  2. ↑ Quote attributed to John Robert Moore in Edward Tomarken's Johnson, Rasselas, and the Critics, pg. 20.
  3. ↑ Johnson 1819, p. 2.
  4. 1 2 Trent 1920.
  5. ↑ Belcher 2012.
  6. ↑ Nassir 1989.
  7. ↑ Arieti 1981.
  8. ↑ Rees 2010.
  9. ↑ Wasserman 1975.
  10. ↑ Kolb 1949.
  11. ↑ Tillotson 1942.
  12. ↑ Weitzman 1969.
  13. ↑ Gray 1985.
  14. ↑ Chisholm 2015.
  15. 1 2 "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, Drama". BBC Radio 4. 30 May 2015. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
  16. ↑ Dr Johnson's House
  17. ↑ McDaid.
  18. ↑ Richard 2003.
  19. 1 2 Johnson, Samuel (2008). Richard, Jessica, ed. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Broadview Press. p. 176. ISBN 9781770480582.
  20. ↑ Zewde 2002, p. 87.
  21. ↑ Lewis 1943.
  22. ↑ Dubosarsky.
  23. ↑ Brown 1922.
  24. ↑ LINC Tasmania staff, Rasselas Valley (Photograph) State Library of Tasmania, LINC Tasmania

References

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Further reading

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