Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744)

1. Around 1713, Pope alongwith Jonathan Swift, John Gay, John Arbuthnot and Thomas Parnell founded a literary club called the Scriblerus Club to satirise All the false tastes in learning. The character of Martinus Scriblerus was originally  conceived as a focus for the club’s satire aginst current trends in culture and scholarship. The name Martin was taken from John Dryden’s comic character Sir Martin Mar-all, whose name had become synonymous with absurd error, Scriblerus was a reference to scrible, the contemporary term of contempt for a talentless writer.
2. The Club’s major production: Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus (a collaboration of its members)
3. Works:
   1. Translated Homer’s Iliad (1720)
      1. Took him 6 years
   2. Odyssey (1726)
   3. Pastorals:
      1. Were among his first published poems.
      2. The Pastorals were published in the 6th part of Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies. Followed by An Essay on Criticism published in May 1711.
      3. It offered an idealised view of country life modeled on Virgil’s pastorals.
   4. Messiah **
      1. Deals with Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, which was said to predict the birth of Christ.
   5. Windsor Forest:
      1. Pope’s first political poem, which celebrated the rule of Queen Anne and Peace Treaty of Utrecht. Windsor Forest a famous royal hunting ground, functions as a metaphor for political life of the nation.
      2. The poem is dedicated to George Granville, secretary of war in Queen Anne government.
   6. The Dunciad:
      1. Poem celebrates the Goddess Dullness and the progress of her agents across Britain.
      2. In the first version Pope’s target or attack was Lewis Theobald, who was replaced by Colly Cibber in 1742-43.
   7. An Essay on Man:
      1. Philosophical essay written in heroic couplets. Concerned with vindicating ways of God to Man, Pope’s Argument in the essay derive in part from Bolingbroke’s fragmentary philosophical writings. It comprises four epistles addressed to Lord Bolingbroke:
         1. Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to the Universe
         2. Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to Himself as an Individual
         3. Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to Society.
         4. Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to Happiness.
   8. Epistle to a Lady:
      1. Verse letters written in heroic couplets. Historical Epistle in form.
      2. Addressed to Martha blount.
      3. Pope is critical of women, who live a public aristocratic life, While he celebrates Martha, a woman who shines in the private life.
   9. An Essay on Criticism:
      1. A didactic poem published 1711
      2. A Neo-classical Menifesto. It contains a thumbnail history from Aristotle to William Walsh.
      3. David Code stated “the essay was in part an attempt on Popes’s part to identify and refine his own positions as poet and critic and his response to an ongoing critical debate, which centered on the question of whether poetry should be ‘natural’ or written according to predetermined ‘artificial’ rules inherited from classical past”.
      4. The essay is divided into three sections
         1. The need of studying the principles of taste and improving out judgement by studying the ancients and holding them in high esteem.
         2. Causes that hinder correct judgement
         3. Functions of a critic.
      5. According to Walter Jackson Bate “Pope lists three main characteristics essential for a good critic: awareness of his own limitations, knowledge of nature in its general forms and imitation of the ancients.”. Pope states that an ideal critic needs to posses teste, judgement and learning.
   10. The Rape of the Lock
       1. Published in 1712 with two cantos and later expended into five cantos in 1714
       2. It was dedicated to John Caryll.
       3. It was based on Lord Petre’s cutting of a lock of hair of Arabella Fermor and the Baron is the pseudonym for the historical Robert, Lord Peter.