DOCSLIB.ORG

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) P

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) P An Essay on Man Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (1688-1744) p. 536: Despite a crippling childhood disease and persistent ill health, Alexander Pope was determined at a young age to become a great poet. He triumphantly achieved his boyhood ambition by the time he was in his twenties, capturing the attention of the leading literary figures of England with An Essay on Criticism (1711) and The Rape of the Lock (1712-1714). A brilliant satirist in verse, Pope gave his name to the literary era in which he wrote, which is now called The Age of Pope and Swift. A Struggle Against Prejudice Born into the Roman Catholic family of a London linen merchant, Pope was a member of a persecuted religious minority. After the expulsion of King James II in 1688, English Catholics could not legally vote, hold office, attend a university, or live within ten miles of London. Probably to comply with the rule of residency, his family moved first to the village of Hammersmith and then to Binfield, near Windsor Forest. In this rural setting, Pope spent his formative years writing poetry, studying the classics, and educating himself. “[T]his long Disease, my Life” In addition to facing religious prejudice, Pope had severe political problems. Deformed by tuberculosis of the bone, or Pott’s disease, Pope stood only about four and a half feet tall—“that little Alexander the women laugh at,” he said about himself. Pope also suffered from nervousness and excruciating headaches throughout his life. In a line from his poem Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735), he refers jokingly but also with with sadness to “this long Disease, my Life.” Around 1719, two years after his father’s death, Pope moved Twickenham (traditionally pronounced twit ‘nem), a village on the Thames, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Literary Friendships Although Pope is more often remembered for his wasplike sting in quarrels than for his cordiality—he was called “the Wasp of Twickenham”—he befriended many literary figures of his day. For example, in the coffeehouses of London, he associated with Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, essayists and founders of two prominent periodicals of the time. Satiric Scribblers Pope also associated with a group that included writers Jonathan Swift and John Gay. Pope joined with these men and others in forming the Scriblerus Club, whose purpose was to ridicule what its members regarded as “false tastes in learning.” Meeting regularly, the members wined, dined, and joked with one another. For example, when Pope read aloud to the group his revised version of The Rape of the Lock, one member, Thomas Parnell, humorously objected that Pope had stolen a passage from an old manuscript. Parnell even pretended to produce this manuscript, which was really his own translation of Pope’s English into bad Latin. Although the club did not continue for long, its emphasis on fun and satire probably inspired Swift’s masterwork Gulliver’s Travels; Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, the most successful play of the century; and Pope’s The Dunciad, which is an assault on his literary enemies. A Turn to Philosophy In the 1730s, Pope’s writing moved out of the satirical mode to become increasingly philosophical. Leaving humor behind, he embarked on a massive work concerning morality and government, but completed only An Essay on Man and Moral Essays. Nevertheless, the entire body of his work is so noteworthy that critics and fellow writers alike frequently accord him exceptionally high praise. The twentieth-century poet An Essay on Man Alexander Pope Edith Sitwell, for example, called Pope “perhaps the most flawless artist our race has yet produced.” excerpted from p. 537: Literary Analysis In both works [An Essay on Man and The Rape of the Lock], Pope uses a figure of speech from rhetoric, or public speaking, called antithesis — placing side by side, and in similar grammatical structures, strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas. excerpt from An Essay on Man (p. 539) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ An Essay on Man is an examination of human nature, society, and morals. In the following passage, Pope cautions against intellectual pride by vividly describing the uncertain “middle state” in which humans have been placed. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: 5 With too much knowledge for the skeptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride, stoic n. a person He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; indifferent to joy, In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; grief, pleasure, or In doubt his mind or body to prefer; pain. 10 Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; 15 Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: 20 The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Rape of the Lock: and an Essay On
    ECLECTIC EN G LISH CLASSICS TH E RA PE OF TH E LOCK A N D AN ES S AY ON MAN BY ALE XAN DE R EOP E TE D BY A . M . VAN E DI DY K E , M . A . DE PARTME N T OF E N G LIS H , CINCI NNATI H IG H SCH OOL N E W YORK CIN CIN N A TI CH ICA G O A M E R I C A N B O O K C O M P A N Y 1 898 w 1 m “H iram i m ” . atis m LIbr ar y BOWL of EGUC TRANS FE HML D I O RAIN MID COL LEG E H a m! 1 192 1 J U . ‘ Co r i h t 1 8 8 b py g , 9 , y A M E R I AN Boox O A C C M P N Y . I N T R O D U CT I O N . A D E R OP E wa s n n A L E X N P bor in Lombard Street , Lo don , May fa h er wa wh o 2 1 1 68 8 . t s , His a linen draper had amassed a considerable fortune , and his mother, Edith , was one of the sev i n n enteen ch ldren of William Turner, a Roman Catholic ge tlema , ’ th e e e e lord of a manor in Yorks hire . Both of po t s par nts wer Roman Catholics . On account of his extremely delicate health , he was, at the age th e n of eight , put under tuitio of the family priest, who taught him the rudiments of Latin and Greek .
    [Show full text]
  • Lewis, Jenny. 2021. Translating Epic from an Unfamiliar Language: Gilgamesh Retold
    Lewis, Jenny. 2021. Translating Epic from an Unfamiliar Language: Gilgamesh Retold. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis] https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/30429/ The version presented here may differ from the published, performed or presented work. Please go to the persistent GRO record above for more information. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Goldsmiths, University of London via the following email address: [email protected]. The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. For more information, please contact the GRO team: [email protected] Complete thesis: Jenny Lewis, March 2021. 1 Translating Epic from an Unfamiliar Language: Gilgamesh Retold Jenny Lewis Department of English and Comparative Literature Goldsmiths, University of London. Submitted for the PhD in Creative Writing, March 2021 Complete thesis: Jenny Lewis, March 2021. 2 Declaration of Authorship I declare that the work presented in this PhD submission is entirely my own. Signed: Date: 31st March 2021 Complete thesis: Jenny Lewis, March 2021. 3 Acknowledgements Firstly, huge thanks to my supervisors Stephen Knight and Isobel Hurst for helping me to bring Gilgamesh Retold and ‘Translating Epic from an Unfamiliar Language’ into being. I also thank my publisher, Michael Schmidt who published Gilgamesh Retold as a Carcanet Classic in 2018, and the first ever Carcanet Audiobook in 2019. I’m grateful to Arts Council England for Grants for the Arts awards for my ‘Writing Mesopotamia’ collaboration with the exiled Iraqi poet, Adnan Al-Sayegh (aimed at strengthening ties between English and Arabic-speaking communities) to translate into Arabic, dramatise and perform extracts from Gilgamesh Retold and test them widely on the public.
    [Show full text]
  • Delightful Visibility and Its Limits. Joseph Addison on “The
    Delightful Visibility and its Limits. Joseph Addison on “The Pleasures of the Imagination” It is undoubtedly his close connection to Cartesianism1 which leads the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche at the end of the 17th century to pay little attention to the relevance of the imagination for the realm of the visible. His programme of rationalism with its ambition to marginalize the human faculty of creating images by assigning it to a worthless sense perception renders it almost impossible to recognize the constitutive function of this faculty for visuality in general. A few decades later, however, things change with the emergence of empiricism and the publication of John Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding, especially with regard to the differentiation between primary and secondary qualities.2 According to this distinction, qualities like colours, sounds and tastes are not part of the material object itself but constructed in the process of perception. In contrast to primary qualities like extension and figure, which belong directly to the material object, secondary qualities like colours, sounds and tastes emerge from the imagination, proving it to be an important part of perception in general. Concerning these particular notions, it was Locke who gave Joseph Addison the cue for his Essay on the Pleasures of the Imagination.3 As unmistakably announced in the title of his essay, Addison undertakes nothing less than a counter-programme to Malebranche’s devaluation of the imagination, turning towards the delights affiliated with this faculty and at the same time attempting to establish a theoretical approach. Unlike other discourses on the imagination4, he does not attempt to defend or justify a ‚lesser’ human faculty.
    [Show full text]
  • Honors Thesis Submitted by Joy Lynn Rothrock to Dr. Dennis R. Hoilman
    Honors Thesis Submitted by Joy Lynn Rothrock to Dr. Dennis R. Hoilman English Department Winter Quarter 1972 ...... ,'i 'i l,_ -<l '_C' ,-' -1; , I,,:~ l v' I ~ ~ /~_, 1--1-' , / Pope's Uses of Order Alexander Pope's works reflect three aspects of the order or hierarchy he sees in the universe. These aspects are order in poetry, 1n Nature, and in society. Order in poetry refers to the hierarchy of poetical forms and devices that exist; order in Nature relates to the great Chain of Being in which all things in Nature exist on graduated levels of importance; and order in society refers to the hierarchy of social values in which certain things are necessarily of more value than others. One approach to understanding The Dunciad, perhaps Pope's most comnlex work, is through defining his uses of order with examples from An Essay on Man for poetical order, An Essay on Criticism for order in Nature, and Rane of the Lock for social order. The Dunciad's meaning unfolds through examining his uses of order as defined in these poems. Pope uses order in poetry on two levels. First, there is a hierarchy in poetical forms. Less poetic skill ,is needed to write a pa.storal than an epic. His career demonstrates this concept of hierarchy. Beginning with the Pastorals, he graduates to the mock heroic form in Rape of the Lock, and ultimately to the epic form in The Dunciad. The second level of poetry's order applies to the mechanical construction of poems. As seen in Pope's poetry, order in a poem is the symmetrical development ------_..
    [Show full text]
  • Staying Optimistic: the Trials and Tribulations of Leibnizian Optimism
    Strickland, Lloyd 2019 Staying Optimistic: The Trials and Tribulations of Leibnizian Optimism. Journal of Modern Philosophy, 1(1): 3, pp. 1–21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32881/jomp.3 RESEARCH Staying Optimistic: The Trials and Tribulations of Leibnizian Optimism Lloyd Strickland Manchester Metropolitan University, GB [email protected] The oft-told story of Leibniz’s doctrine of the best world, or optimism, is that it enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the eighteenth century until the massive earthquake that struck Lisbon on 1 November 1755 destroyed its support. Despite its long history, this story is nothing more than a commentators’ fiction that has become accepted wisdom not through sheer weight of evidence but through sheer frequency of repetition. In this paper we shall examine the reception of Leibniz’s doctrine of the best world in the eighteenth century in order to get a clearer understanding of what its fate really was. As we shall see, while Leibniz’s doctrine did win a good number of adherents in the 1720s and 1730s, especially in Germany, support for it had largely dried up by the mid-1740s; moreover, while opponents of Leibniz’s doctrine were few and far between in the 1710s and 1720s, they became increasing vocal in the 1730s and afterwards, between them producing an array of objections that served to make Leibnizian optimism both philosophically and theologically toxic years before the Lisbon earthquake struck. Keywords: Leibniz; Optimism; Best world; Lisbon earthquake; Evil; Wolff The oft-told story of Leibniz’s doctrine of the best world, or optimism, is that it enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the eighteenth century until the massive earthquake that struck Lisbon on 1 November 1755 destroyed its support.
    [Show full text]
  • PAPER VI UNIT I Non-Fictional Prose—General
    PAPER VI UNIT I Non-fictional Prose—General Introduction, Joseph Addison’s The Spectator Papers: The Uses of the Spectator, The Spectator’s Account of Himself, Of the Spectator 1.1. Introduction: Eighteenth Century English Prose The eighteenth century was a great period for English prose, though not for English poetry. Matthew Arnold called it an "age of prose and reason," implying thereby that no good poetry was written in this century, and that, prose dominated the literary realm. Much of the poetry of the age is prosaic, if not altogether prose-rhymed prose. Verse was used by many poets of the age for purposes which could be realized, or realized better, through prose. Our view is that the eighteenth century was not altogether barren of real poetry. Even then, it is better known for the galaxy of brilliant prose writers that it threw up. In this century there was a remarkable proliferation of practical interests which could best be expressed in a new kind of prose-pliant and of a work a day kind capable of rising to every occasion. This prose was simple and modern, having nothing of the baroque or Ciceronian colour of the prose of the seventeenth-century writers like Milton and Sir Thomas Browne. Practicality and reason ruled supreme in prose and determined its style. It is really strange that in this period the language of prose was becoming simpler and more easily comprehensible, but, on the other hand, the language of poetry was being conventionalized into that artificial "poetic diction" which at the end of the century was so severely condemned by Wordsworth as "gaudy and inane phraseology." 1.2.
    [Show full text]
  • Masculinization of Tragedy in Joseph Addison's Cato and George Lillo's
    Litera: Dil, Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies Litera 2018; 28(2): 233-252 DOI: 10.26650/LITERA2018-0006 Research Article Masculinization of Tragedy in Joseph Addison’s Cato and George Lillo’s The London Merchant Joseph Addison’un Cato ve George Lillo’nun Londralı Tüccar Eserlerinde Tragedyanın Maskülenleşmesi Sinan GÜL1 ABSTRACT During the 18th century, the development of gender and sexuality in the modern Western world was under tremendous impact of visual and literary culture. Considering this, by examining Addison’s Cato. A Tragedy. By Mr. Addison. Without the Love Scenes (1764) (Latin version) and Lillo’s The London Merchant (1731), this article analyzes the masculine features of the characters of 18th-century tragedies in England and investigates the reasons behind the dismissal and belittlement of love scenes and feminine qualities in those tragedies. In comedies, women and their qualities were openly ridiculed, while in tragedies, masculine values and patriarchal rules were overtly protected. Depicting societal norms and ideals, Cato and The London Merchant portray the evolving notions of masculinity. Despite increasing female influence in political and social culture, love, often associated with feminine qualities, was belittled in domestic and public domains. In doing so, playwrights either entirely ignored the idea of using female characters in their plays, thus creating contextual errors of portraying husbands without wives or sons without mothers, or depicted women as the sources of passion that could potentially destroy society, men in particular. Therefore, the concept of love was neglected, undervalued, or dismissed, with playwrights rather offering patriotic or capitalist virtues to substitute the idea of love so that their plays would be deemed as appropriate for public appreciation.
    [Show full text]
  • (Mael 502) Semester Ii British Poetry Ii
    PROGRAMME CODE: MAEL 20 SEMESTER I BRITISH POETRY I (MAEL 502) SEMESTER II BRITISH POETRY II (MAEL 506) SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES Uttarakhand Open University PROGRAMME CODE: MAEL 20 SEMESTER I BRITISH POETRY I (MAEL 502) SEMESTER II BRITISH POETRY II (MAEL 506) SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES Uttarakhand Open University Phone no. 05964-261122, 261123 Toll Free No. 18001804025 Fax No. 05946-264232, e-mail info @uou.ac.in http://uou.ac.in Board of Studies Prof. H. P. Shukla (Chairperson) Prof. S. A. Hamid (Retd.) Director Dept. of English School of Humanities Kumaun University Uttarakhand Open University Nainital Haldwani Prof. D. R. Purohit Prof. M.R.Verma Senior Fellow Dept. of English Indian Institute of Advanced Study Gurukul Kangri University Shimla, Himanchal Pradesh Haridwar Programme Developers and Editors Dr. H. P. Shukla Dr. Suchitra Awasthi (Coordinator) Professor, Dept. of English Assistant Professor Director, School of Humanities Dept. of English Uttarakhand Open University Uttarakhand Open University Unit Writers Dr. Suchitra Awasthi, Uttarakhand Open University, Haldwani Semester I: Units 1,2,3,4,5, Semester II: Unit 7 Dr. Binod Mishra, IIT, Roorkee Semester I: Units 6,7,8,9 Dr. Preeti Gautam, Govt. P.G. College, Rampur Semester II: Units 1, 2 Mr. Rohitash Thapliyal, Graphic Era Hill University, Bhimtal Semester II: Units 3,4,5 Dr. Mohit Mani Tripathi, D.A.V. College, Kanpur Semester II: Unit 6 Edition: 2020 ISBN : 978-93-84632-13-7 Copyright: Uttarakhand Open University, Haldwani Published by: Registrar, Uttarakhand Open University, Haldwani
    [Show full text]
  • Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey
    Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey Alton Barbour Abstract: Beginning with a brief account of the history of Westminster Abbey and its physical structure, this paper concentrates on the British writers honored in the South Transept or Poet’s Corner section. It identifies those recognized who are no longer thought to be outstanding, those now understood to be outstanding who are not recognized, and provides an alphabetical listing of the honored members of dead poet’s society, Britain’s honored writers, along with the works for which they are best known. Key terms: Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, South Transept. CHRISTIANITY RETURNS AND CHURCHES ARE BUILT A walk through Westminster Abbey is a walk through time and through English history from the time of the Norman conquest. Most of that journey is concerned with the crowned heads of England, but not all. One section of the Abbey has been dedicated to the major figures in British literature. This paper is concerned mainly with the major poets, novelists and dramatists of Britain, but that concentration still requires a little historical background. For over nine centuries, English monarchs have been both crowned and buried in Westminster Abbey. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes who conquered and occupied England in the mid 5th century were pagans. But, as the story goes, Pope Gregory saw two fair-haired boys in the Roman market who were being sold as slaves and asked who they were. He was told that they were Angles. He replied that they looked more like angels (angeli more than angli) and determined that these pagan people should be converted to Christianity.
    [Show full text]
  • Augustan Poetry the Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
    B.A.(H) Second year EN202: Poetry and Drama From 1660 to 1785 Unit34: Augustan Poetry The Rape of the Lock By Alexander Pope The Poet Pope was born in London in 1688 in a catholic family. The period covering the age of Pope is generally known as the Augustan age of English literature. The writers of this age took the Classical authors as their role models and attempted to adhere to the principles of harmony, propriety, order, reason and restraint. “It was the age of reason and the age of prose, our excellent eighteenth century”, in the words of Matthew Arnold. To most authors of the period, life meant only the life of the fashionable society of the town tinged with numerous vices and follies from which flourished the vehement satires of the time .The aspiring poet Alexander Pope, being the victim of the anti-catholic sentiments at that time, was compelled to leave the capital and moved to Binfield with his family in 1700. Another disadvantage of his life was his deformed body due to his tuberculosis at the age of twelve. Whatever calamity was there in his personal life, Pope's literary career was voluminous. He was acclaimed greatly after the publication of An Essay on Criticism (1711) , an aphoristic verse proclaiming the neo-classical good manners and common sense. His An Essay on Man((1733-34) rediscovered the kinship between human race and the Newtonian Universe. The four Moral Essays(1731-35), impinged with the idea of balance in private and public life, established his recognition as a poet of universal appeal.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems Alexander Pope
    The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems Alexander Pope Project Gutenberg's The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, by Alexander Pope Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems Author: Alexander Pope Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9800] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 18, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAPE OF THE LOCK AND OTHER *** Produced by Clytie Siddall, Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK AND OTHER POEMS Livros Grátis http://www.livrosgratis.com.br Milhares de livros grátis para download. BY ALEXANDER POPE EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY THOMAS MARC PARROTT, PH.D.
    [Show full text]
  • ENGL 3502E BRITISH LITERATURE II British Literature from 1700 to WW I
    Carleton University 2010-2011 Department of English ENGL 3502E BRITISH LITERATURE II British Literature from 1700 to WW I Prerequisite: ENGL 2300 Class times: Mondays & Wednesdays 2:35 pm – 3:55 pm Location: Please confirm fall and winter term locations on Carleton Central Instructor: Dr. J.H.C. Reid Office Hours: Mondays, 1:00 – 2:00 Office: 1915 Dunton Tower Phone: 520-2600 ext. 2318 email: [email protected] Do feel free to phone at any time as there is voice mail in the office. Course description This course introduces students to texts by British authors from 1700 to WW I, and is designed to communicate a sense of the chronological development of English literature in Britain as well as of the dynamic cultural contexts this literature engages. In order better to appreciate the cultural importance of the texts we study, we will strive to situate them in relation to their literary and historical backgrounds and to appreciate the ways in which these texts shaped, were shaped by, and commented on, the issues of their day. In addition to engaging with extended pieces of poetry and prose by writers such as Pope, Swift, Fielding, Defoe, Dickens, Austen, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Tennyson, iter alia, we will study shorter works by a variety of authors in order to show how literary genres are constructed by communities of men and women writing with shared and competing interests and motives. One of the focal questions underlying our reading will be: How does an historical understanding of British culture enhance and enrich our reading of English literature from different historical periods? We will also consider the portraits of heroism, gender, love, lust, violence, religion, art, authorship, and Englishness presented in these texts, and study the ways in which different writers handled such topics.
    [Show full text]