Conflict and Declamation in Rasselas FREDERICK M. KEENER My Lord, forsake your Politick Utopians, To sup, like Jove, with blameless Ethiopians. Pope “It seems to me, said Imlac, that while you are making the choice of life, you neglect to live.”1 Readers of Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas have tended to regard this reflection, from Chapter xxx, as just; have from time to time proceeded to remark that only when Pekuah is abducted in Chapter xxxiii do the travelers cease to be mere spectators of life and begin to participate in it— although that harrowing degree of participation was not what Imlac had in mind three chapters before.2 Indeed, so wise is Imlac, so often do his sayings correspond with those of the narrator, and with those uttered by Johnson elsewhere, that a reader has trouble sustaining disbelief that all three persons are not, for practical purposes, one. So natural is the trinitarian assumption that criticism, while alert to other possibilities of interpretation, has seemingly been restricted in its examination of them.3 I hope to cast light on Imlac’s relation to the narrator as well as to Rasselas, but first it will be necessary to question the validity of Imlac’s “you neglect to live.” Although the characters have only tenta tively involved themselves with complete strangers to this point more than midway through the tale, whether or not Imlac wishes to acknowledge it they have seriously become engaged not just in 157 158 / FREDERICK M. KEENER life but also in conflict, with each other.4 Although the book is not a full-fledged novel as we have come to understand the meaning of that term, its account of the main characters’ disagree ment, anger, and estrangement from each other deserves recog nition.5 To emphasize the prominence of this chain of events, a chain linking together more than a third of the tale, I shall summarize the main details before looking into them. By Chapter xiii, Rasselas is pleased to have found a friend in Imlac, who, while differing from him in the expectations they entertain about the world outside the Happy Valley, will help him escape. But by the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters, the prince and his sister, Nekayah, have come to distrust Imlac, to feel that he disapproves of their “search, lest we should in time find him mistaken.” Imlac disappears for several chapters while brother and sister alone pursue the choice of life. By Chapter xxix, however, Rasselas and Nekayah have themselves fallen out, she tending to agree with Imlac and thinking Rasselas has now questioned her honesty: “I did not expect, answered the princess, to hear that imputed to falshood which is the consequence only of frailty” (Ch. xxviii). Then, after six or more chapters’ absence, Imlac reenters to suggest living, specifically an instructive visit to the pyramids. Rasselas resists the suggestion but relents with—not eagerness but acceptance on principle: “I am willing, said the prince, to see all that can deserve my search” (Ch. xxx). Almost immediately, by denying the possible existence of ghosts, he provokes Imlac’s stern disagreement, accompanied by a gratuitous slap at the doubts of some “single cavillers.” And when news of Pekuah’s abduction reaches the party, Imlac abruptly questions Rasselas’ order for pursuit of the bandits. Rasselas does not respond, has difficulty controlling himself; he wants to accuse “them”—the Turkish guards, maybe others as well—of cowardice (Ch. xxxiii). Not until the end of the thirty-fifth chapter does the prince show any sign of willing cooperation with his mentor, when comforting Nekayah. It has been thirteen chapters since Rasselas’ disaffection Conflict and Declamation in Rasselas / 159 was announced to us, nearly a third of the book, and it will be longer still before Rasselas shows another sign of reconciliation. In Chapter xxxvii Imlac refuses to let the prince accompany him in ransoming Pekuah. Only in the fortieth chapter, with fewer than ten chapters to go and very few episodes, mainly that of the astronomer, is there evidence of renewed affection between the younger man and the older. But the nature of their conflict and of their means of resolving it...