No questions this time (shew!), but we will have an in-class writing response when you get to class. Here are some ideas we might explore tomorrow, reaching back into Monday's chapters, as well as the chapters listed above:
* What does Johnson believe is the true business of a poet? What should he/she try to capture or depict for his/her readers? (how might this relate to what Johnson is trying to do for his readers?)
* Why are both Rasselas and Imlac skeptical of teachers and philosophers? How do they "fail" their profession or calling?
* In exploring the various ranks of society, what do Rasselas and his sister, Nekayah, find is universal no matter what your station in life? Do riches make the rich happier? Does family and intimacy make the poor more content?
* What does it mean to live "according to nature"? Does this echo the poet, Alexander Pope's belief that, "whatever is, is right"?
* Why might Johnson discuss the subject of marriage at such length in Chapters 28 and 29? Consider his audience...
* Johnson writes that "the early writers are in possession of nature, and their followers of art" (28). How does this relate to an appreciation and study of the past? Is the past essentially better than the present?
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