SOURCE: "Repetitive Patterns in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas," in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 36, No. 3, Summer, 1996, pp. 623-39.

In the following essay, Smith examines the use and function of repetitive narrative structures in Rasselas.

Ye who would listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagemess the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas prince of Abissinia.

Thus, Samuel Johnson begins The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, raising the expectation that attention to thenarrative which follows will somehow dispel "the whispers of fancy," "the phantoms of hope," or help one to understand whether "the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow."' Whether and how the narrative actually does this has been debated almost...