Page 122 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

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appropriate to wonder whether Rasselas and ‘The vanity of
human wishes’ can be seen as companion pieces even if
contrasts between the prose of one and the poetry of the
other may strike some readers as equally relevant.
This does not sound judiciously hesitant. It suggests a lazy
evasiveness which refuses to confront the relevant questions. A
more promising version might be:
Rasselas and ‘The vanity of human wishes’ do share some
qualities. They are unashamedly oratorical in style. Their
structures are episodic. Both works flatter the reader by
providing characters who can be comfortably patronized, Yet
even at precisely comparable moments clear distinctions can
be drawn. Each text closes its sequence of metaphors with
the image of a powerful river and of people being carried
along by its current. Yet in the novel it evokes a serene
passivity whereas in the poem it defines an appalling
helplessness.
Johnson’s own criticism can seldom be accused of timidity.
Here is one of his sturdier remarks: ‘Why, Sir, if you were to
read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so
much fretted that you would hang yourself’ (Boswell’s Life of
Johnson, 6 April 1772). You might enjoy the uninhibited
theatricality of this attack or resent its tactics as insultingly
simple. Perhaps there is as much imaginative vigour and more
intellectual substance in Goldsmith’s complaint: ‘There is no
arguing with Johnson, for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks
you down with the butt end of it’ (Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 26
October 1769). Or is this as unhelpfully rough in its
browbeating as the gesture which it attacks?
Both assertions have an aggressive punchiness which is fun.
Yet, since neither offers supporting evidence, they seem unlikely
to influence the reader’s own view of either Richardson or
Johnson. Such attacks will sound disproportionate or apt
according to the opinion which the reader has previously
formed of the target texts. If you already believe Richardson’s
plots to be relentlessly dull, you may welcome the ruthlessness
of Johnson’s unqualified comment. If not, you will dismiss it as
a self-indulgent overstatement. If you also think that such
irrational dogmatism typifies Johnson’s criticism, Goldsmith’s