Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was born in London on May 21, 1688, disadvantaged from the start by being born into a
Roman Catholic family (at a time when Catholics were severely restricted in their liberty and property by the
English government). Barred from an English university education by his religion, he nevertheless received
some schooling at a couple of Catholic institutions, but soon supplemented this with his own extensive
reading in Greek and Latin authors. He began writing verse by doing translations of these authors, and
imitations and adaptations of others such as Chaucer, Waller, and Cowley.
Pope is by far the most important poetic figure of the age called after him (1700-1740). His importance lies in
the fact that he exercised the greatest influence on the classical poetry of the century. His poetry was
intellectual, didactic and satiric, and was almost written in heroic couplet. It is never of the highest class, but
within its limits, it stands unrivalled in the language.
Pseudo Classicist
The true classicism is meant to be a combination of poetic ardor and excellence of form. In Pope the true
poetic ardor and energy is absent but he is exceedingly careful about the technique of form and style. When
we look at the contents of Pope's poetry we do not find anything worthwhile. Satire, didactic poetry, and a
flimsy mock-heroic poem---are all his poetic achievements. They are mere products of intellect, and
artificially constructed; they do not reproduce true classical spirit. Hence it is not correct to describe Pope as
a true classicist. (Milton, with his poetic impulse and perfection of form, is a true classicist.) The classicism of
Pope is the shadow of classicism; it is false or pseudo-classicism.
Intellectual Poetry
Pope's poetry was of his age, and it reflected in full measure the spirit of the age. It is intellectual and its
appeal is to the mind rather than to the heart. It is full of wit and epigram, the brilliancy of which is
unsurpassed. Pope is next to Shakespeare, in contributing quotable lines of verse, which are remarkable for
their pregnancy, neatness and brevity. Here are some of his famous quotes.
 To err is human, to forgive divine.
 Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.
 We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.
 For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

The Rape of The Lock As A Social Satire

This poem shows Pope's genius for satirical poetry which exposes in a witty manner the follies and
absurdities of the high society of the times. All the recognized weapons of satire have been employed by
Pope in a most effective manner. The principal targets of satire in this poem are aristocratic ladies and
gentlemen of Pope's day. Ladies who learns to roll their eyes and to blush in a coquettish manner. Pope
ridicules the fickleness and superficiality of the ladies by referring to their hearts as moving toy-shops and
their varying vanities.
A Poet of Wit And Fancy
Pope's subjects of poetry in which he excelled are of the satirical and mock-heroic kind. He is the
unchallenged master of artificial poetry; poetry dealing with artificial life, and in this sphere, 'The Rape of the
Lock' stands unmatched. Among the great English poets who had preceded Pope, Chaucer was the painter of
actual life, Spenser of imaginative life, Shakespeare of ideal life, and Milton of moral and spiritual life.
It remained for Pope to give rhythmical utterance to artificial life, and he was eminently fitted for this task
because he was gifted with the power of intellectual expression and perfect propriety of phrase.
It is true that Pope had not much to express, he had hardly any original thing to say, his thoughts are mostly
borrowed or common place, but what gives distinction to his poetry is its lucid expression, His aim was to set
the gems, not to create them. Lessing said: Pope's great merit lay in what we call the mechanic of poetry.
Pope's Heroic Couplet
Pope is the unchallenged master of the heroic couplet, just as Milton is of blank verse. Almost all of Pope's
poetry is written in the heroic couplet. The rhythm of Pope's couplet has perfect smoothness and regularity
which have a pleasing effect upon the ear. Pope mostly used the ‘stops’ couplet--- that is, there is a final
pause after every couplet; one couplet does not flow into the next couplet, carrying on its sense. This kind of
couplet limits the scope of the poet for he has to cut his thoughts to the size of the couplet. But Pope was the
master not the victim of the heroic couplet. He condensed his thoughts so precisely and chose his words so
aptly that he could express his complete thought within the range of two lines.
Pope, A Classic In Prose
Mathew Arnold has called Pope as 'classic in prose'. It looks like a paradox, since Pope was a poet and not a
prose-writer. What Arnold means to say is that Pope's poetic style has all those qualities which gave
distinction to prose i.e. lucidity, balance, imagination, warmth, wit, clearness and logic etc. but is wanting in
that moving and transporting quality which is the hall-mark of true poetry. Lowell said: ‘Measured by any
high standard of imagination, he will be found wanting; tried by any test of wit, he is unrivalled’.
Some Limitations
Pope's poetry is not only superficial but is limited in its range. Firstly, it is the poetry of society in the city, as
in The Rape of the Lock-- a poetry of satire and a philosophic poetry, which is dry and has no warmth of
experience behind it. Pope said: “The proper study of mankind is man". But it was mankind as seen only in
the small society of London. Stop ford Brooke rightly remarks: ‘The vast range of humanity beyond London
was left without sympathy, as if it did not exist. This was not only insular, it was insolent’.
So far as Pope's versification is concerned it was limited to the heroic couplet. Though he handled this
measure with masterly skill, it shows mechanical skill rather than genuine art.
Famous work

• Poetry
➢ Essay on Criticism
➢ Rape of the Lock
➢ Dunciad and Moral Essays
➢ An Essay on Man

• Translations and editions

➢ Translation of the Iliad
➢ Translation of the Odyssey
➢ Edition of Shakespeare's works

Merits and Demerits of Alexander pope’s poetry

Merits
His poetry may not be of the highest class

Pope is the most important, though not the greatest, poet of the eighteenth century. He
exercised the greatest influence on the classical poetry of the century. His poetry was
intellectual didactic and satiric and was almost all written in the heroic couplet. It is never of
the highest class, but within its limits, it stands unrivalled.
Controversy regarding his greatness
There is a good deal of controversy among critics as regards his true place and position among
the poets of England. They widely differ amongst themselves as regards his eminence as a poet.
Some consider him as one of the master poets of England and assign to him a place near
Shakespeare and Milton; there are others who would not be willing to assign him any place as a
poet. Appreciation of his poetry has partly received a setback on account of some defects in his
character. He received the highest praise in his own century. He was ranked with the poets of
song by Swift, Addison and Warburton. In reply to a question whether Pope was a poet,
Johnson sharply retorted by saying that
"if Pope be not a poet where is poetry to be found."
Joseph Wharton once praised the poet by the remark that in that species of poetry wherein
Pope excelled, he is superior to all mankind. Bowles placed him above Dryden and to Byron he
was the greatest name in English poetry. Ruskin regarded him as the most perfect
representative of the true English mind and Mr. Lowell is of the opinion that, “in his own
province he still stands unapproachably alone”
He was not liked by Wordsworth and Coleridge and was even denounced by them. Matthew
Arnold regarded him, with Dryden, the "classic of our Prose." There has been an
unprecedented reversal of fortune in the twentieth century and his merits have come to be
widely acknowledged on all hands. Whether you call his work poetry or prose, the fact is that it
possesses certain qualities which demand our greatest respect and give us genuine pleasure.

Demerits
His excellence is just technical, so it is rather of a superficial kind. He does not exhibit any depth
of human nature or any subtlety of human mind. He has no eye for the beauty of external
nature, or for the grandeur of human character. His poetry is lacking in originality of thought.
The substance of his poetry consists mostly of conventional thought and commonplace maxims
of morality and his merit is a matter of his expression. His expression is brilliant, because he
polishes and refines it. He polishes and replenishes his thoughts and his language find the
startling turns which emerge as a result thereof, evoke our admiration, but they do not warm
our hearts as true poetry does. He is not a creative poet, he cannot sing as he has no ears for
the subtlest melodies of verse. He is not a lyric poet; he lacked the intensity, spontaneity, music
and melody of a lyric poet. He exalts reason over imagination. Consequently imaginative lights
as we find in Shelley, are conspicuous by their absence from his poetry. His poetry deals with
library criticism, ethical philosophy, moral satire, which for their presentation have to depend
upon cold and impassioned analysis and scientific method, and not heights of the flights of
imagination. Much of his poetry is satirical, which is topical in its appeal, and lacks the element
of universality. His poetry is of little interest to us to-day, full of allusions and references to
contemporary personalities as it is. His poetry is limited in its range as it was poetry of society in
the city—of fashionable and smart society-poetry of satire and a philosophic poetry, which is
dry and has no warmth of experience in it. He aims at the study of mankind but the man he
studies is of the limited society of a city—man in London—and in literary London.
“The vast range of humanity beyond London,"
Says Stop ford Brooke,"was left without sympathy, as if it did not exist. This was not insular, it
was insolent."
His studies relate only to the social life, manners and customs of a highly artificial society,
where conventions impede the strong and smooth flow of elemental human passions and
emotions. He could not rise up to epic and drama which constitute the grandest form of poetry.
He lacked insight into eternal truths and to capture them in melody and metaphor, or some
strain of harmony, is absolutely beyond him. As merits he is limited only to the heroic couplet,
which shows in his hands only mechanical skill and not genuine art.
His merits-correctness
"Correctness" is one of his highest claims to eminence and greatness. He was in early life
admonished by William Walsh to be correct.
"There was one way of excelling, for though we had several great poets we never had
one great poet that was correct."
The advice evoked response in Pope's heart and he assiduously applied himself to regular
practice of polishing, refining and pruning. He achieved consequently correctness of the form of
expression, and not of thoughts or emotions. We may not agree with what he says, but we all
like the manner of his speech, for whatever he says he says in the best possible manner. He
himself once stated:
"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but never so well expressed."
He does not aim at originality of expressed thought and much of what he says is just
commonplace and trite, but even this he adorns in a correct expression. He practices the art of
selection and uses the most appropriate words and phrases, a quality in which he superbly
excels. His language is orderly and balanced. His thought is logically developed and well-
arranged. His style is clear, precise and deliberately careful. It is balanced and correct and free
from the excess of the Elizabethan and the Romantics. Vagueness, obscurity and extra valance
are carefully pruned and corrected. He follows the rules of composition as laid down by the
ancients and interpreted for him by the writers and critics of Frame. He was great artists,
correct artist, and one who shows "a meticulous sense of exact word in the exact place."
(Albert). He perfected the heroic couplet, which is marked by lucidity, strength, with aptness
that cannot be gain said. His couplets are tighter and more compressed, and there are few of
the "Alexandrines" or triplets in them.
His Epigrams and Aphorisms:
He is remarkable for his epigrams and aphorisms, which lends the gift of suitability to his
poetry. "Probably no poet," says Edmunds, "with the exception of Shakespeare, has enriched
our language so much with quotable and readily remembered sayings." "Foolish rush in
where angels fear to tread," "to err is human, to forgive divine," are only two of his
innumerable aphorisms, which have been forged with such final force as to have the accent of
proverbs.
The Brilliance of his Satires
Most of the poetry of Pope is satirical. He excels all other English poets as a satirist. "His careful
workmanship often makes his satirical touches more attractive than Dryden's" (John Dennis).
He has none to compare him in the gift of rapid rapier-thrusts, which confound and disarm an
opponent. His satires are simply brilliant and the portraits of the people he detested are,
indeed the best he could give. His peace of satire dealing with the character of Atticus is his
masterpiece, consummate as it is in workmanship. When he rises above his personal hostilities
and is guided, and inspired by his offended artistic conscience he is able to achieve universality.
His poetry is intellectual
His poetry was of the age, and it reflected in full measure the spirit of the age. Being intellectual
if appeals to the mind rather than to the heart. It is full of brilliant epigrams and polished wit.
His lines of verse are quotable, being packed with meaning, neatness and brevity. Lack of
passion and emotion is more than compensated in his poetry by intellectual clearness end
neatness of expression. In the words of Lowell
"Pope as a literary man represents precision and grace of expression,"
A Poet of wit and fancy
He was a poet of wit and fancy. His subjects are of the satirical end the mock-heroic kind. He is
a master of artificial poetry. The Rape of the Lock is a rare specimen of this class of poetry. It
exhibits a rare combination of wit and fancy. His satire may not be having the largeness of
Dryden, but he looked on society with an unclouded eye, and he expresses his views with a pen
that never stumbled, never made slips of forms, and always said the right thing in the right way.
(Sainsbury)
His reputation and true place and position:
Pope's reputation witnessed an unprecedented rise and fall through the ages; it swung to the
extremes of elevation, eminence and degradation. When it sank low and met with a heavy
reversal to pull it back to the heights of original eminence from the quagmire of neglect and
oblivion was difficult, if not impossible. The twentieth century, particularly the second quarter
of the first half saw an unexpected reversal of taste and interest in him, which meant that both
his theory and practice were once again brought within the intelligence and comprehension of
men, who were by this gradual process led on to accept the same. Two excellent book viz., "The
Poetical Career of Alexander Pope" by Robert Kilburn Root and "On the Poetry of Pope" by
Geoffrey Tillotson were published on Pope towards the end of the first half of the century
which showed the revival of deep interest in the poetry of Pope. Prof. Root knows that if he can
get others to read Pope as he reads him with understanding, the poet will not lack admirers and
his end will be served. Prof. Root recognizes Pope for the very considerable poet he is and says
so in no uncertain terms. He completely repudiates the unbelievable straw figure, erected to
the greater glory of Wordsworth, and he joins the younger critics in their reaction in favor of
the real Pope. And he does not overstate (exaggerate) his case. Mr. Tillotson departs from the
conventional and old-fashioned method of Mr. Root and adopts a device which permits him to
concentrate on his special subject to the exclusion of all others. He expounds Pope's ideal of
correctness as it applies to subject-matter and the standard of critical judgment, to design,
language and metrics. Tillotson quite frankly writes as a partisan, but he escapes the dangers of
unduly depressing the Romantics in order to exalt Pope, or of trying to show that Pope himself
was a Romantic, born out of time. While never forgetting that Pope was an Augustan, and
indeed throwing not a little light on the Augustan tradition in poetry, he claims that by the
standards of any age, or rather of all ages, Pope is a great poet. He has brought home to us by
careful and sensitive analysis, the true nature of Pope's effects. He has increased our pleasure
by making us conscious of the source of our pleasure. He has shown that Pope is akin to
Wordsworth, Keats, and even to Mozart. The attitude of a modern critic is in favor of Pope; he
sees a perfect design in all his poems, he admires the use of his language and versification, and
he praises the appropriateness of his diction. A modern critic sums up his achievement briefly
and brilliantly thus:
"Pope's merits are of a kind not likely to be affected by time, a lively fancy, a power of
satire almost unrivalled, and a skill in using words so consummate that there is no poet,
excepting Shakespeare, who has left his mark upon the language so strongly. He has said in
the best words what we all know and feel, but cannot express and has made that classical
which in weaker hands would be commonplace. His sensibility to the claims of his art is
exquisite; the adaptation of his style to his subject shows the hand of a master. All these are
gifts to which none but a great poet can lay claim."
"Pope," says Lowell "was the chief founder of an artificial poetry which in his hands was
living and powerful, because he used it to express artificial modes of thinking and an artificial
state of society. Measured by any high standard of imagination, he will be found wanting ;
tried by any high of wit, he is unrivaled."
His true place can be measured well by quoting John Dennis,
"Pope's sensibility to the claims of his art is exquisite, the adaptation of his style to his
subject shows the hand of a master, and if these are not the highest gifts of a poet, they are
gifts to which none but a poet can lay claim".
He is not a Shakespeare but he has undoubtedly left an indelible impress on the English
Language, which would make it certainly poorer, if taken away. He wrote for his age and as Dr.
Johnson admits, he exhibits extra ordinary art in ministering to the tastes of his times.

Epic Conventions

Because a mock-epic parodies a classical epic, it uses the same conventions, or formulas, as the
classical epic—but usually in a humorous way. For example, a convention of many classical
epics is a sea voyage in which perils confront the hero at every turn. In The Rape of the Lock,
the sea voyage is Belinda's boat trip up the Thames River. Her guardian sylph, Ariel, sees "black
omens" that foretell disasters for Belinda even though the waves flow smoothly and the winds
blow gently. Will she stain her dress? Lose her honor or her necklace? Miss a masquerade?
Forget her prayers? So frightful are the omens that Ariel summons 50 of his companion spirits
to guard Belinda's petticoat, as well as the ringlets of her hair. Following are examples of the
epic conventions that Pope parodies.

Invocation of the Muse

In ancient Greece and Rome, poets had always requested “the muse” to fire them with creative
genius when they began long narrative poems, or epics, about godlike heroes and villains. In
Greek mythology, there were nine muses, all sisters, who were believed to inspire poets,
historians, flutists, dancers, singers, astronomers, philosophers, and other thinkers and artists.
If one wanted to write a great poem, play a musical instrument with bravado, or develop a
grand scientific or philosophical theory, he would ask for help from a muse. When a writer
asked for help, he was said to be “invoking the muse.” The muse of epic poetry was named
Calliope. In "The Rape of the Lock," Pope does not invoke a goddess; instead, he invokes his
friend, John Caryll , who had asked Pope to write a literary work focusing on an event ( that
turned the members of two families)—the Petres and the Fermors—into bitter enemies. Caryll
thought that poking fun at the incident would reconcile the families by showing them how
trivial the incident was.
Division of the Poem Into Books or Cantos:

The traditional epic is long, requiring several days several days of reading. Dante's Divine
Comedy, for example, contains 34 cantos. When printed, the work consists of a book about two
inches thick. Pope, of course, presents only five cantos containing a total of fewer than 600
lines. Such miniaturizing helps Pope demonstrate the smallness or pettiness of the behavior
exhibited by the main characters in the poem.
Descriptions of Soldiers Preparing for Battle:

In The Iliad, Homer describes in considerable detail the armor and weaponry of the great
Achilles, as well as the battlefield trappings of other heroes. In The Rape of the Lock, Pope
describes Belinda preparing herself with combs and pins—with "Puffs, Powders, Patches"—
noting that "Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms."

Descriptions of Heroic Deeds:

While Homer describes the exploits of his heroes during the Trojan War, Pope describes the
"exploits" of Belinda and the Baron during a card game called Ombre, which involves three
players and a deck of 40 cards.

Account of a Great Sea Voyage:

In The Odyssey, Odysseus (also known as Ulysses) travels the seas between Troy and Greece,
encountering many perils. In The Aeneid, Aeneas travels the seas between Troy and Rome, also
encountering perils. In The Rape of the Lock, Belinda travels up the Thames in a boat.

Participation of Deities or Spirits in the Action:

In The Rape of the Lock—as in The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Divine Comedy,
and Paradise Lost—supernatural beings take part in the action.

Presentation of Scenes in the Underworld:

Like supernatural beings in classical epics, the gnome Umbriel visits the Underworld in The
Rape of the Lock.