The Vanity of Human Wishes and the Tenth Satire: A Comparison.
This paper examines and compares two poems: The Vanity of Human Wishes and the Tenth Satire. This paper will compare these two poems and note the similarities and messages they both contain. The Vanity of Human Wishes and the Tenth Satire are great works of poetry, in comparison they are also very similar, which is the subject of the present essay. The poems are structured into a number of sections. The Vanity of Human Wishes essentially illustrates how many of the traditional aspirations of man - wealth, political power, learning, military glory, long life, and beauty - are, when the mechanism of attaining these ends is deconstructed, ultimately 'empty' goals. Johnson ends the poem advocating instead love, patience, and faith: 'these goods for man the laws of heaven ordain' . The underlying assumption for Johnson is that people have the same nature, and that whoever thinks rationally must also think morally; the poem has a strong moral tone to it.
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