The Vanity Of Human Wishes

 

One of the greatest English writers of the 18th Century, Dr Samuel Johnson, wrote this poem as a survey of mankind. When the ‘A-list’ of writers of English Literature is outlined by people, whether to praise or blame, it is Shakespeare, Donne, Pope, Jane Austen, and the Brontes most people know. And of course the Romantic poets. 

There is also poetry which is written from a satiric impulse which desires to offer a solution to the sorrows of human life. To attack the vice, and not the man in whom it resides. 

So here we have a poem which ought to be studied as a remedy for the  challenges of the world in which we live. It is unromantic, unsentimental, and it aims to act as a reality check to the excesses of belief and the delusions which plague us. This is not a poem which is limited by context, or can be considered ‘outdated’. There is no film version of it that would make students better understand what’s going on in its portrayal of the struggle of the human species. There is no way a summary or ‘translated’ version could really convey its purposes. 368 lines of iambic pentameter in rhymed couplets. The form of it is eloquent. 

‘Let Observation with extensive View, 

Survey Mankind from China to Peru 

Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife,

And watch the busy scenes of crowded Life.

Then see how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate 

O’erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate 

Where wavering Man, betrayed by venturous Pride 

To tread the dreary path without a guide 

As treacherous Phantoms in the mist delude 

Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy Good 

How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice; 

Rules the bold Hand or prompts the suppliant Voice’. 

It is not a viewpoint fuelled by class or gender struggle that Johnson illustrates. Its scope is broader than identity politics. It is the product of a culture in which people like himself could take a big picture view of the whole human struggle for survival and fulfillment. Individuals of the socio-political era  of his time are named, but we can actually substitute any appropriate name from our own era and context, because the factors of ambition, venality, ego and status anxiety remain constant and visible in human beings from age to age. 

This sort of observation is only possible for a person who is able to overcome the triggers and prompts which compel us to act in haste, in our judgments and decisions. When we step back, and observe the appeals to our senses and our beliefs, the temptations targeting our delusions, we can see how often people’s actions are motivated by self-interest. We see then how transient popularity and acclaim are; how foolish and misleading it is to trust or place our value in other people’s acceptance of us, or the constancy of their goodwill: 

‘Unnumbered Suppliants crowd Preferment’s gate 

Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great 

Delusive Fortunes hear the incessant call 

They mount, they shine, evaporate and fall ...

For now no more we trace in every line 

Heroic worth, benevolence divine’. 

This view of life is not very different from that put forward in religious scriptures, including those we consider to be sacred building blocks of our country. There is temporary flurry and there is lasting impact, and we must not mistake one for the other. 

This is not only ‘Celestial Wisdom’. It is practical. As Johnson asserts, in his heroic cumulative sequence, by choosing wisely and choosing well, based on reason, we can ‘make the happiness that we do not find’.