Alexander Pope

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Alexander Pope

• An Essay on Man

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Contents

• - Alexander Popes biography
• - The Rape of the Locke
• - An Essay on Man

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Alexander Popes biography

• Alexander Pope (21 May 1688- 30 May 1744) is
  generally regarded as the greatest English poet
  of the early eighteen century, best known for his
  satirical verse and for his translation of Homer.
• Pope was born in London to Alexander Pope, a
  linen merchant, and Edith who were both Roman
  Catholics. Pope was taught to read by his aunt
  and then sent to two Catholic schools, at Twyford
  and Hyde Park Corner. From early childhood he
  suffered numerous health problems, including
  Potts disease (a form of tuberculosis affecting
  the spine) which deformed his body and stunted
  his growth. He never grew beyond 1,37 m.
• In 1700, his family moved to a small estate
  in Binfield, Berkshire. With his formal education
  now at an end, Pope embarked on an extensive
  campaign of reading. As he later remembered In
  a few years I had dipped into a great number of
  the English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek
  poets. This I did without any design but that of
  pleasing myself, and got the languages by hunting
  after the stories rather than read the books to
  get the languages. His favourite author was
  Homer.

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• First published in 1709 in a volume of
  Poetical Miscellanies by Jacob Tonson, The
  Patorals brought instant fame to the twenty year
  old Pope. They were followed by An Essay of
  Criticism (1711). Around 1711, Pope made friends
  with John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison and
  Richard Steele. In 1712, Pope, Gay, Swift and
  Thomas Parnell formed the Scriblerus Club. The
  aim of the club was to satirise ignorance and
  pedantry in the form of the fictional scholar
  Martinus Scriblerus. Popes major contribution to
  the club would be Peri Bathous, or the Art of
  Sinking in Poetry (1728), a parodic guide on how
  to write bad verse. The Rape of the Locke is
  perhaps Popes most popular poem. It is a mock-
  heroic epic, written to make fun of a high
  society quarrel between Arabella Fermor and Lord
  Petre, who had snipped a lock of hair from her
  head without her permission.
• The climax of Popes early career was the
  publication of his Works in 1717.
• Pope had been fascinated by Homer since
  childhood. In 1713, he announced plans to publish
  a translation of Homers Iliad. The commercial
  success of his translation made Pope the first
  English poet who could live off the sales f his
  work alone, indebted to no prince or peer
  alive, as he put it. His translation of the
  Iliad duly appeared between 1715 and 1720. It was
  later acclaimed by Doctor Johnson as a
  performance which no age or nation could hope to

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• equal.
• The money he made allowed Pope to move to a
  villa at Twickenham in 1719, where he would
  create a famous grotto and gardens. Encouraged by
  the very favourable reception of the Iliad, Pope
  translated the Odyssey. The translation appeared
  in 1725-1726. In this period Pope also brought
  out an edition of Shakespeare, which silently
  regularised his meter and rewrote his verse in
  several places. Lewis Theobald and other scholars
  attacked Popes edition, incurring Popes wrath
  and inspiring the first version of his satire The
  Dunciad (1728).
• In 1731, Pope published his Epistle to
  Burlington, on the subject of architecture, the
  first of four poems which would later be grouped
  under the title Moral Essays (1731-35). In the
  epistle, Pope ridiculed the bad taste of the
  aristocrat Timon.
• Inspired by Bolingbrokes philosophical
  ideas, Pope wrote An Essay on Man (1733-4). He
  published the first part anonymously, in a
  cunning and successful ploy to win the praise
  from his fiercest critics and enemies.
• After 1738, Pope wrote little. His major
  work in these years was revising and expanding
  his masterpiece The Dunciad. The complete
  revision of the whole poem appeared in 1743. By
  this time Popes health was failing and he died
  in his villa on May 30, 1744.

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The Rape of the Locke

• The Rape of the Locke is one of the most
  famous English-language examples of the
  mock-epic. Published in its first version in
  1712, when Pope was only 23 years old, the poem
  served to forge his reputation as a poet and
  remains his most frequently studied work. The
  inspiration for the poem was an actual incident
  among Pope's acquaintances in which Robert, Lord
  Petre, cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair,
  and the young people's families fell into strife
  as a result. John Caryll, another member of this
  same circle of prominent Roman Catholics, asked
  Pope to write a light poem that would put the
  episode into a humorous perspective and reconcile
  the two families. The poem was originally
  published in a shorter version, which Pope later
  revised. In this later version he added the
  "machinery," the retinue of supernaturals who
  influence the action as well as the moral of the
  tale.

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Plot

• Belinda arises to prepare for the day's
  social activities after sleeping late. Her
  guardian sylph, Ariel, warned her in a dream that
  some disaster will befall her, and promises to
  protect her to the best of his abilities. Belinda
  takes little notice of this oracle, however.
  After an elaborate ritual of dressing and
  primping, she travels on the Thames River to
  Hampton Court Palace, an ancient royal residence
  outside of London, where a group of wealthy young
  socialites are gathering for a party. Among them
  is the Baron, who has already made up his mind to
  steal a lock of Belinda's hair. He has risen
  early to perform and elaborate set of prayers and
  sacrifices to promote success in this enterprise.
  When the partygoers arrive at the palace, they
  enjoy a tense game of cards, which Pope describes
  in mock-heroic terms as a battle. This is
  followed by a round of coffee. Then the Baron
  takes up a pair of scissors and manages, on the
  third try, to cut off the coveted lock of
  Belinda's hair. Belinda is furious. Umbriel, a
  mischievous gnome, journeys down to the Cave of
  Spleen to procure a sack of sighs and a flask of
  tears which he then bestows on the heroine to fan
  the flames of her ire. Clarissa, who had aided
  the Baron in his crime, now urges Belinda to give
  up her anger in favour of good humour and good
  sense, moral qualities which will outlast her
  vanities. But Clarissa's moralizing falls on deaf
  ears, and Belinda initiates a scuffle between the
  ladies and the gentlemen, in which she attempts
  to recover the severed curl. The lock is lost in
  the confusion of this mock battle, however the
  poet consoles the bereft Belinda with the
  suggestion that it has been taken up into the
  heavens and immortalized as a constellation.

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Analysis

• The Rape of the Lock is a humorous
  indictment of the vanities and idleness of
  18th-century high society. Basing his poem on a
  real incident among families of his acquaintance,
  Pope intended his verses to cool hot tempers and
  to encourage his friends to laugh at their own
  folly.
• The poem is perhaps the most outstanding
  example in the English language of the genre of
  mock-epic. The epic had long been considered one
  of the most serious of literary forms it had
  been applied, in the classical period, to the
  lofty subject matter of love and war, and, more
  recently, by Milton, to the intricacies of the
  Christian faith. The strategy of Pope's mock-epic
  is not to mock the form itself, but to mock his
  society in its very failure to rise to epic
  standards, exposing its pettiness by casting it
  against the grandeur of the traditional epic
  subjects and the bravery and fortitude of epic
  heroes Pope's mock-heroic treatment in The Rape
  of the Lock underscores the ridiculousness of a
  society in which values have lost all proportion,
  and the trivial is handled with the gravity and
  solemnity that ought to be accorded to truly
  important issues. The society on display in this
  poem is one that fails to distinguish between
  things that matter and things that do not. The
  poem mocks the men it portrays by showing them as
  unworthy of a form that suited a more heroic
  culture. Thus the mock-epic resembles the epic in
  that its central concerns are serious and often
  moral, but the fact that the approach must now be
  satirical rather than earnest is symptomatic of
  how far the culture has fallen.

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• Pope's use of the mock-epic genre is
  intricate and exhaustive. The Rape of the Lock is
  a poem in which every element of the contemporary
  scene conjures up some image from epic tradition
  or the classical world view, and the pieces are
  wrought together with a cleverness and expertise
  that makes the poem surprising and delightful.
  Pope's transformations are numerous, striking,
  and loaded with moral implications. The great
  battles of epic become bouts of gambling and
  flirtatious tiffs. The great, if capricious,
  Greek and Roman gods are converted into a
  relatively undifferentiated army of basically
  ineffectual sprites. Cosmetics, clothing, and
  jewellery substitute for armour and weapons, and
  the rituals of religious sacrifice are
  transplanted to the dressing room and the altar
  of love.

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An Essay on Man

• An enormous emphasis was placed on the
  ability to think and reason during the
  Enlightenment. People during this era thought and
  reasoned about a variety of topics. Some people
  concerned themselves with the issue of God, which
  consequently caused many to question the church.
  Others were concerned with the organization of
  the Universe, and mans place within that
  Universe. The first epistle of Alexander Popes
  Essay on Man can be considered an articulation
  of the Enlightenment because it encompasses three
  major concerns of the people during the
  Enlightenment. Pope addresses mans ability to
  reason and think for himself, he questions the
  church and the nature of Christianity, and he
  also speculates about mans place in the world,
  as apart of the great chain of life.
• The ability to reason was the central focus
  of the Enlightenment also denoted The Age of
  Reason. Pope begins epistle one by appealing to
  the reason of his audience. He writes, Together
  let us beat this ample field, / Try to open, what
  the covert yield! Pope encourages his audience
  to use the reason they have been given, to
  examine those things that have been advised
  against. To reason about those issues which have
  been kept in secrecy. He then goes on to write
  say first, of God above, or man below, / What
  can we reason, but from what we know? Pope again
  is addressing the ability of his audience to
  reason. He is trying to bring them into the 18th
  century, asking them to look for evidence in the
  knowledge they receive, rather then allowing the
  church to spoon-feed them all of their knowledge.
  

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• During the Enlightenment, people began to
  question the church for the first time. Pope
  exemplifies this when he writes, no Christians
  thirst for gold. Pope subtly questions the
  nature of Christianity and Christians by exposing
  their own sinful desire for material goods. His
  words are simple, but they say a lot. By
  acknowledging that these Christians sin, and
  thirst for gold, he asks then why a man is
  looked down upon if they do not aspire to be
  Christian, since Christians have a sinful nature
  just like that of every other man. Pope was not
  alone in questioning Christianity and the church.
  David Hume writes, the Truth of Christian
  Religion is less than the Evidence for the Truth
  of our Senses Many writers during the
  Enlightenment not only questioned Christianity,
  but also the church in general. Epistle one of
  Popes Essay on Man, is merely one of the
  pieces of literature during the 18th century,
  which voices its ideas on the subject.
• Another issue that Pope, as well as his
  readers concerned themselves with during the
  Enlightenment, was mans place within the
  Universe. Pope addresses this issue when he
  writes, vast chain of being! which from God
  began, / Natures ethereal, human, angel, man
  Pope expresses his opinion that mans place in
  the Universe, is within Natures chain.
  Therefore, man is simply a link within that
  chain. Popes idea that there is this chain or
  structure to the Universe, is representative of
  the belief by many Enlightenment thinkers, that
  there is a best way to structure things. During
  the Enlightenment everything was being organized,
  and classified. From the structure of society, to
  the structure of the Universe, there existed a
  common belief that organization was key to
  producing the best of anything.

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The Great Chain of Being

• The Great Chain of Being or scala naturae
  is a classical and western medieval conception of
  the order of the universe, whose chief
  characteristic is a strict hierarchical system.
• It is a conception of the world's
  structure that was accepted, and unquestioned, by
  most educated men from the time of Lucretius
  until the Copernican revolution . The Chain of
  Being is composed of a great number of hierarchal
  links, from the most base and foundational
  elements up to the very highest perfection - in
  other words, God, or the Prime Mover.
• God, and beneath him the angels, both
  existing wholly in spirit form, sit at the top of
  the ladder. Earthly flesh is fallible and
  ever-changing mutable. Spirit, however, is
  unchanging and permanent. This sense of
  permanence is crucial to understanding this
  conception of reality. One does not abandon one's
  place in the chain it is not only unthinkable,
  but generally impossible. (One exception might be
  in the realm of alchemy, where alchemists
  attempted to transmute base elements, such as
  lead, into higher elements, either silver, or
  more often, gold- the highest element.)
• In the natural order, earth (rock) is at
  the bottom of the chain these elements possess
  only the attribute of existence. Moving on up the
  chain, each succeeding link contains the positive
  attributes of the previous link, and adds (at
  least) one other. Rocks, as above, possess only
  existence the next link up, plants, possess life
  and existence. Beasts add not only motion, but
  appetite as well.

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• Man is a special instance in this
  conception. He is both mortal flesh, as those
  below him, and also spirit. In this dichotomy,
  the struggle between flesh and spirit becomes a
  moral one. The way of the spirit is higher, more
  noble it brings one closer to God. The desires
  of the flesh drag one down. The Christian fall of
  Lucifer is especially terrible, because that
  angel is wholly spirit, who yet defies God, the
  ultimate perfection.