|
''The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated'' is a poem by the English author Samuel Johnson.〔Johnson 1971〕 Written in 1749 (see 1749 in poetry), it was completed while Johnson was busy writing ''A Dictionary of the English Language'' and it was the first published work to include Johnson's name on the title page. As the subtitle suggests, it is an imitation of Satire X by the Latin poet Juvenal. Unlike Juvenal, Johnson attempts to sympathise with his poetic subjects. Also, the poem focuses on human futility and humanity's quest after greatness like Juvenal but concludes that Christian values are important to living properly. It was Johnson's second imitation of Juvenal (the first being his 1738 poem ''London''). Unlike ''London'', ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' emphasises philosophy over politics. The poem was not a financial success, but later critics, including Walter Scott and T. S. Eliot, considered it to be Johnson's greatest poem.〔Eliot 1957 p. 180〕 Howard D. Weinbrot called it one of the great poems in the English language."〔Weinbrot 1997 p. 46〕 ==Background== In 1738 Johnson composed ''London'', his first imitation of Juvenal's poetry, because imitations were popularised by those like Pope during the 18th century.〔Bate 1977 p. 172〕 When Johnson replaced Edward Cave with Robert Dodsley as his publisher, he agreed with Dodsley that he would need to change the focus of his poetry.〔Demaria 1993 p. 130〕 Johnson's ''London'' is concerned primarily with political issues, especially those surrounding the Walpole administration, but ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' focuses on overarching philosophical concepts.〔 In a conversation with George Steevens, Johnson recounted that he wrote the first seventy lines "in the course of one morning, in that small house behind the church".〔Hill Vol. 2 pp. 313–314〕 Johnson claimed that "The whole number was composed before I committed a single couplet to writing".〔Demaria 1993 p. 131〕 To accomplish this feat, Johnson relied on a "nearly oral form of composition" which was only possible "because of his extraordinary memory".〔 Johnson told Boswell that when he was writing poetry, he often "from laziness" only wrote down the first half of each line.〔Boswell p. 362〕 This remark is borne out by the manuscript of ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'', in which the first half of each line is written in a different ink to the second half; "evidently Johnson knew that the rime words would keep the second halves in mind."〔Johnson 1964 p. 90f.〕 Although Johnson was busy after 1746 working on his ''Dictionary'', he found time to further work on ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and complete his play, ''Irene''. The first edition was published on 9 January 1749. It was the first publication by Johnson to feature his name on the title page.〔Lane p. 114〕〔Yung 1984 p. 66〕 It was not a financial success and only earned Johnson fifteen guineas.〔 A revised version was published in the 1755 edition of Dodsley's anthology ''A collection of Poems by Several Hands''.〔 A third version was published posthumously in the 1787 edition of his ''Works'', evidently working from a copy of the 1749 edition.〔Johnson 1971 p. 208〕 However, no independent version of the poem was published during Johnson's life beyond the initial publication.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Vanity of Human Wishes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|