Answer these questions (1-7) about “The Vanity of Human Wishes.” What is the poem’s central theme?What is Johnson implying about the human condition, about pride, about ambition, about human relationships?Why does he give us portraits of the wealthy man, the statesman, the soldier, the scholar, the beauty, the virtuous man, and so on?What does he have to say about human greatness, about hope, about fear, about people’s relationship with God?What use does he make of the historical figures whom he invokes throughout the poem?What solutions does he offer, in the end, to the problems he has raised in the course of the poem?Is the end of the poem cheerful or gloomy?In “On Idleness,” what vice does Johnson state “appears in the greatest multiplicity of forms”?In “On Idleness,” why does Johnson state that idleness may be the worst of the vices?How does Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” fit the genre of an “elegy”? Be specific. (3 points)
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