摘要
This paper looks into Samuel Johnson＇s famous poem The Vanity of Human Wishes： The Tenth Satire Imitated （1903）. For centuries, the poem is under hot discussion for its form, tone, theme, and even the imitated style and holds well its position as Johnson＇s greatest poem. Based on the former criticism but avoiding the detailed investigation into thematic concern and stylistic features, the paper pays more attention to Johnson＇s instructive purpose of literary creation and argues that as an observant poet of life, Johnson aims to provide empirical guidance to the reader and human beings and thereby distributes some instructions implicitly through the poetic depiction of human experiences.
