Alexander Pope

1
Alexander Pope

• 16881744

2
Alexander Pope Overview

• Generally considered greatest poet of his time
• Most notable works
• The Rape of the Lock
• The Iliad
• The Duncaid
• An Essay on Criticism

3
Biography - Early life

• Birth London, 1688
• Roman Catholic
• Lack of formal schooling
• Tuberculosis
• First pastorals at age 16 - delicate evocations
  of an idyllic world of shepherds and
  shepherdesses 1.

4
Biography

• Achieved fame with The Rape of the Lock
• Serial publication of translation of The Iliad
  hugely popular
• Later translated Odyssey
• Important feuds and friendships
• Asthma, delirium, death

5
Style

• Heroic couplets
• Conformed to pentameter form strictly
• His poetry strove for a perfect balance between
  thought and technique 2. (Mlinko 334)
• Satire
• Rape of the Lock, Duncaid, epigrams

6
Pastorals - II. Summer (excerpt)

• Ye shady beeches, and ye cooling
  streams,Defence from Phœbus, not from Cupids
  beams,To you I mourn nor to the deaf I
  singThe woods shall answer, and their echo
  ring.The hills and rocks attend my doleful
  lay,Why art thou prouder and more hard than
  they?The bleating sheep with my complaints
  agree,They parchd with heat, and I inflamed by
  thee.The sultry Sirius burns the thirsty
  plains,While in thy heart eternal winter
  reigns.
• ()Whereer you walk, cool gales shall fan the
  glade,Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a
  shadeWhereer you tread, the blushing flowers
  shall rise,And all things flourish where you
  turn your eyes.

7
Essay on Criticism (excerpts)

• A little Learning is a dangrous ThingDrink
  deep, or taste not the Pierian SpringThere
  shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,And
  drinking largely sobers us again.Fir'd at first
  Sight with what the Muse imparts,In fearless
  Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts, While from
  the bounded Level of our Mind,Short Views we
  take, nor see the lengths behind,But more
  advanc'd, behold with strange SurprizeNew,
  distant Scenes of endless Science rise!So
  pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try,Mount
  o'er the Vales, and seem to tread the SkyTh'
  Eternal Snows appear already past,And the first
  Clouds and Mountains seem the lastBut those
  attain'd, we tremble to surveyThe growing
  Labours of the lengthen'd Way, Th' increasing
  Prospect tires our wandering Eyes,Hills peep
  o'er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
• To err is human, to forgive divine.
• Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

8
ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON, THE LADYFRANCES
SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS

• Yes, I beheld the Athenian queen
• Descend in all her sober charms
• And take, she said, and smiled serene,
• Take at this hand celestial arms
• Secure the radiant weapons wield
• This golden lance shall guard desert
• And if a vice dares keep the field,
• This steel shall stab it to the heart.
• Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
• Received the weapons of the sky
• And dippd them in the sable well,
• The fount of fame or infamy.
• What well? what weapon? (Flavia cries)
• A standish, steel, and golden pen!
• It came from Bertrands, not the skies
• I gave it you to write again.

• But, friend, take heed whom you attack
• Youll bring a house (I mean of peers)
• Red, blue, and green, nay, white and black,
• Lambeth and all about your ears.
• Youd write as smooth again on glass,
• And run, on ivory, so glib,
• As not to stick at fool or ass,
• Nor stop at flattery or fib.
• Athenian queen! and sober charms!
• I tell ye, fool, theres nothing int
• Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms
• In Drydens Virgil see the print.
• Come, if youll be a quiet soul,
• That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
• Ill list you in the harmless roll
• Of those that sing of these poor eyes.

9
Explication

• Stanzas 13 extended military conceit
• Athenian imagery
• Writing tools as weapons
• Pope as soldier, seriousness of battle
• Mock-heroic elements
• Elevated diction

10
Explication

• Stanza 4 abruptly ends conceit
• Introduces second voice for Lady
• Identification of objects of conceit
• Direct mocking of conceit
• Bertrands (toy shop) 3
• Stanza 5 admonition
• References to Popes rivals
• Lambeth and all as if whole localities united
  against him

11
Explication

• Stanza 6 Popes self-critique
• Alludes to the glibness with which Pope often
  writes caustic remarks or praise
• Stanza 7 Again mocking
• Points out the emptiness of his conceit
• Claims that the weapons were from Venus, i.e.
  gifts of love
• Drydens Virgil refers to a part of the Æneid
  where Venus gives Æneis a suit of heavenly armor.
  3

12
Explication

• Stanza 8
• Refers to satire or epic - if you dont have the
  courage to write satire nor the strength to write
  epic, write nothing at all 3
• Singing of eyes correlates to writing simpler
  epistles
• Roll eyes

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Endnotes

• 1 Gurney, Stephen I. Alexander Pope.
  Notable Poets Vol 2. Pasedena Salem Press,
  1998. p890
• 2 Mlinko, Ange. Alexander Pope. World Poets
  Vol 2. Ed. Ron Padgett. New York Gale Group,
  2000. p334
• 3 Boynton, Henry. The Complete Poetical Works
  of Pope. Boston Cambridge Press, 1903. p633