Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas: An Introduction

Ralston College

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Start Date: 24 Jan, 2022
6 weeks
Study Content: Videos

Explore the humane realism of Samuel Johnson in a deep dive into his only novel with Theodore Dalrymple as your guide.

Course Fee: Free

Certificate Cost: See Fees and Eligibility

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Course Description

This course is made available through the eLearnAfrica and FutureLearn partnership.

Explore the humane realism of Samuel Johnson in a deep dive into his only novel

Learn from Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple, the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels, is an English cultural critic of great distinction. He has written extensively on culture, its contemporary neglect, and its enduring potential.

In this six-week course, Dalrymple will facilitate an encounter with Samuel Johnson, a towering figure of English literature. The course contains the full text and an original audiobook production of The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, which depicts its hero’s “choice of life.”

The novel will show you that human life, far from being perfect—or even perfectible—inevitably contains a large measure of dissatisfaction. Johnson teaches us that the best way forward is not to ignore this fact and embrace the false hope of utopianism, but rather to accept that life involves many trade-offs. The art of life, for Johnson, is largely about making such compromises.

Enjoy a Free Audiobook

This course includes a free audio version of Rasselas, read for you by Theodore Dalrymple, along with the full text of the novel.

Understand Johnson’s humane vision of life

As you delve into Johnson’s novel, the elegant explanations given in Dalrymple’s lectures will allow you to understand the importance of Rasselas and to appreciate the ultimate lessons which the novel teaches.

This course will help you see that the “realism” of Johnson’s vision of human life, one constrained by limitations, choices, and trade-offs, is not at all pessimistic. It is, instead, lucid, liberating—and even cheerful.

Throughout the course, you’ll also be able to savor Johnson’s wonderful prose style as read by Dalrymple in the audiobook provided in the course.

This course is designed for anyone interested in humanities and literature.

This course includes online video, an audiobook, plus text versions of the novel.

Certificate cost may vary. You will be redirected to the host page for cost and payment options.

Ralston College

This university is part of the partnership between eLearnAfrica and FutureLearn.

This institution is available on eLearnAfrica through partnership with FutureLearn.

You may be able to download course materials after enrolling in this course. If not, all of the necessary course materials provided by the course instructor will be available on the provider's course page.

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