𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔸𝕘𝕖 𝕠𝕗 ℙ𝕠𝕡𝕖1700-1750

 Prof.  Abdelhamid Fouda 

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𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔸𝕘𝕖 𝕠𝕗 ℙ𝕠𝕡𝕖1700-1750

Augustan Age/Classical Age 

Alexander Pope   1688-1744

  The greatest master of the Classical school

  Twickenham 

"The proper study of mankind is man" 

"True wit is what oft was thought but never so well expressed "

  PASTORALS (1709)

• Earliest important work

  AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM (1711)

• Heroic couplets

• A didactic poem 

• Published anonymously 1711

• Begins with an exposition of the rules of taste and the authority to be attributed to the ancient writers on the subject

• The laws by which a critic should be guided are then discussed, and instances are given of critics who have departed from them

  MESSIAH

• Published in the Spectator in May 1712

• A sacred eclogue

• Embodying in verse the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah

  WINDSOR FOREST (1713)

• Pastoral 

• topographical poem

• to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht 

•  It combines description of landscape with historical, literary, and political reflections

  THE RAPE OF THE LOCK (1712)

• Mock heroic 

• Brilliant poem

• A poem in two cantos subsequently enlarged to five cantos and thus published 1714

• Published in Lintot's Miscellany 1712

• When Lord Petre forcibly cut off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor's hair, the incident gave rise to a quarrel between the families.

• Pope treated the subject in a playful mock-heroic poem, on the model of Boileau's

  TRANSLATIONS OF ILIAD AND ODYSSEY 

(Fenton and Broome, classical scholars) (1725 and 1726)

  POPE’S EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE (1725) 

  THEOBALD’S SHAKESPEARE RESTORED (1726) 

  THE DUNCIAD (1728)

• Appeared anonymously 1728

• Again in 1742

• Modelled on MAC FLECKNOE

• a mock-heroic satire 

Philosophical poems 

  TO LORD BATHURST

  OF THE USE OF RICHES

  OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER OF MEN

  OF CHARACTERS OF WOMEN

  AN ESSAY ON MAN 

• A philosophical poem in heroic couplets

• Not completed. 

• It consists of four epistles addressed to Bolingbroke

• Its objective is to vindicate the ways of God to man

• Deals with man's relations to the universe, to himself as an individual, to society, and to happiness

• Stewart – “the noblest specimen of philosophical poetry which our language affords” (Active and Moral Powers, 1828)

• Dr Johnson – “Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised.”

  MORAL ESSAYS

• Written under the influence of Lord Bolingbroke

• four ethical poems

• Pope – “Epistles to Several Persons”

• Epistle I (1734) - Addressed to Viscount Cobham, deals with the knowledge and

• characters of men

• Epistle II (1735) – Addressed to Martha Blount, deals with the characters of women

• Epistle III (1733) -  To Lord Bathurst, deals with the use of riches 

o The Epistle contains the famous characters of the 'Man of Ross' and 'Sir Balaam'

• Epistle IV ( 1731 ) - To Lord Burlington, originally subtitled 'Of False Taste', deals with the same subject as Epistle III, giving instances of the tasteless use of wealth

  IMITATIONS OF HORACE 

  EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT

•  ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST CECILIA'S DAY (1713)

• One of his rare attempts at lyric.