3.

Alexander Pope
Historical events:
- The Exclusion Bill crisis (1679-81) – Tories and Whigs
- 1685: Charles II succeeded by his brother James II
- 1688: the Glorious Revolution (William and Mary; the constitutional monarchy)

Two distinct strands of culture instead of the remarkably unified Restoration culture:

1. aristocratic high culture (associated with the names of Pope, Swift and Gay – the Tories)
- neo-classical
- urbane and witty (continuation of Cavalier culture)
- skeptical and pessimistic; suspicious of passion and enthusiasm
2. middle class culture: newly emerging

Pope’s age (1700-1744/5)

NEO-CLASSICISM:
- neo-classicism can be looked at as the last phase of the English Renaissance but in its
characteristic 18th century form it was imported by Charles II’s court from France
(influence of Corneille, Molière, Boileau, Rapin etc.)
- basic principle: rules govern the arts (from Aristotle through Horace): e.g. three unities,
strict boundaries between genres etc.
- the problem: English tradition goes very much against the rules (especially Shakespeare)
- different attitudes: pedantic/dogmatic (e.g. Thomas Rymer: A Short View of Tragedy (1692))
vs. flexible (e.g. Dryden’s generous attitude: ‘I admire him [Jonson], but I love Shakespeare.’
(in Of Dramatic Poesie))

Pope’s treatment of the flexible attitude in his ‘Essay on Criticism’

1. rules govern the arts – this is because art is primarily an imitation of Nature and Nature is
itself governed by rules: art must reflect the existing order of the universe
First follow NATURE, and your Judgment frame
By her just Standard, which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd and Universal Light,
Life, Force, and Beauty, must to all impart,
At once the Source, and End, and Test of Art.

2. the rules are set down by and in the classics (translation and imitation)
Those rules of old discovered, not devised,
Are Nature still, but Nature methodized;

3. no originality aimed at, poetry is concerned with the general, the universal, the common
experience
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed,
Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind:

4. the aim is to achieve technical perfection; Dr Johnson about Dryden:

‘Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety
of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion of our metre, the
refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. ... What was
said of Rome adorned by Augustus may be applied by an easy metaphor to English
poetry embellished by Dryden ... he found it brick, and he left it marble.’
the heroic couplet as the perfect form to contain the best thought of the age

5. the ideal poet is the learned scholar: erudition, learning, cultivation

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

6. most successful genre: satire – public poetry (poetry and the poet have a social function)
the most characteristic and greatest poetic achievement of the age: the mock form
- based on a juxtaposition of form and content – typically: high, elevated, heroic
form is used to talk about a low, petty, trivial everyday reality (first great example:
John Dryden’s ‘Mac Flecknoe’)

All human things are subject to decay, Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must he
obey: Should only rule, who most resembles
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, me:
young Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd Mature in dullness from his tender years.
long: Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
In prose and verse, was own'd, without Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.
dispute The rest to some faint meaning make
Through all the realms of Non-sense, pretence,
absolute. But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
This aged prince now flourishing in peace, Some beams of wit on other souls may
And blest with issue of a large increase, fall,
Worn out with business, did at length Strike through and make a lucid interval;
debate But Shadwell's genuine night admits no
To settle the succession of the State: ray,
And pond'ring which of all his sons was His rising fogs prevail upon the day:
fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with
wit;

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): leading figure of the poetry of the first half of the century

- social handicap: a Roman Catholic; still a very influential figure in his age
- physical handicap: curvature of the spine (caused by a tuberculotic illness)
His early career (1709-1717):

- 1709: Pastorals – four pastoral poems addressed to the seasons

- 1711: ‘An Essay on Criticism’ – first major poem, a brilliant synthesis of the neo-classical
aesthetic attitude
- ‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1712 – first version, 1714 – machinery added, 5 cantos, 1717 –
Clarissa’s speech)
- the occasion: the engagement of Arabella Fermor (Belinda) and Lord Petre (the Baron)
broken up
- the plot is simple, reflects the frivolous, empty, superficial life of the aristocracy
- mock-heroic form: all this is related in an epic form and style – everything is derived
and yet everything is part of an original whole which is entirely Pope’s

Now Jove suspends his golden Scales in Air,

Weighs the Men's Wits against the Lady's Hair;
The doubtful Beam long nods from side to side;
At length the Wits mount up, the Hairs subside.
(Canto V, ll. 71-4)

- main strategy: a play with scale; placing the great, the elevated, the heroic and the
frivolous, the petty, the superficial side by side for the comic effect

Close by those meads, for ever crowned with ‘This day, black omens threat the brightest
flowers, fair
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising That e’er deserved a watchful spirit’s care;
towers, Some dire disaster, or by force, or sleight,
There stands a structure of majestic frame, But what, or where, the fates have wrapped
Which from the neighbouring Hampton takes in night:
its name. Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s
Here Britain’s statesmen oft the fall fordoom law,
Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home; Or some frail China jar receive a flaw,
Here thou, great Anna! Whom three realms Or stain her honour, or her new brocade,
obey, Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,
Dost sometimes counsel take – and Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
sometimes tea. Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock
(Canto III, ll. 1-8) must fall.
(Canto II, ll. 101-
110)

- playful and easy, no serious moral content

- the symbolic function of the lock: a playful representation of the war of the sexes

- 1717: the publication of Pope’s collected Works – the climax of his career

Pope’s second creative period (1715-1726): translating Homer and editing Shakespeare;

Pope’s third creative period (1728-1744): satires: 1728 the Dunciad, 1742 The New Dunciad
(in four books)
– regarded by many as his greatest achievement: mock-heroic satire subsumes the
pathetic, the tragic, and the sublime, too
Alexander Pope’s later career

1717: publication of his first collected book of verse

1715-26: translating Homer and editing Shakespeare’s work; criticized for these
1728: The Dunciad – his satirical response in mock heroic form (first in three books, a fourth
book is added in 1742: The New Dunciad)

In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored;
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, Light dies before thy uncreating word:
And unawares Morality expires. Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain
Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to fall;
shine; And universal Darkness buries All.
Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse
divine !

- the appearance of mass popular culture

the commencement