omes with death before he dies. This does not mean he was pessimistic about life like many critics seem to believe. If their is any doubt about that one must only read the last four lines again, These goods for man the laws of Heavn ordain, / These goods he grants, who grants the power to gain; / With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, / And makes the happiness she does not find (365-368). As Greene wrote he is distinctly asserting that happiness is within the reach of anyone who wants it and seeks it the right way (38). To Johnson, the right way would be faith in making the unrealistic become realistic.In Vanity of Human Wishes, Johnsons most famous poem, he discusses in depth his views of what we know as reality, and the reality we need to know and understand. The reality we know is that of possessions and material wealth and power. What we need to know, or at least have faith in is beyond reality. That is another reason Johnson wrote this poem, so he could escape reality by strengthening his own faith in order to expose his readers to the belief in an entity beyond our reality. His writing continued to be an escape from reality. In shorter poems he utilized different techniques for a momentary escape from reality. In A Short Song of Congratulation he used the exploits of an acquaintance to help him escape the reality of his childhood hardships. He continued in On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet to escape reality in his writing. Here he twisted the meaning of death to help him escape the reality of his friends death. It is difficult to follow Johnsons manipulation of reality, because he does it so many ways. It is easier to understand why he did it. Everyone would love to escape reality sometime, do we have to write? Or can we just read Johnson? Could Johnson read his own work to escape, or did he have to write to leave reality?...
