ALEXANDER POPE

1688-1744

Poet of the Age of Reason

Sketches of Pope

Alexander Pope -- Influences

Descartes--the emphasis upon reason, order, harmony

Leibnitz--Rational Theology

Alexander PopePoetic Form

The Heroic CoupletThe heroic couplet’s rhyme-scheme was

ordinarily closed, rhymed couplets.

The meter was Iambic Pentameter.

The couplets often contrasted opposing ideas in an epigrammatic manner.

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is man.” (93)

Themes in Pope’s “Essay on Man”

Evil happens naturally, the by-product of natural fault; it is not directly caused by God.

Pride keeps us from seeing our role in God’s world; we should not presume to judge God.

God’s universe must be coherent with logic and reason.

Humans fit into an elaborate “chain of being, composed of lifeforms and inanimate objects which are all necessary for the whole mechanism to work.

Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man – Selected Passages

  Purpose:  Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield;

The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep or sightless soar;

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,

And catch the manners living as they rise;

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.

In his Argument, Pope ends by telling the reader his purpose. In this case, it is to “vindicate the ways of God to man.”

Think about the word choice “vindicate.” He doesn’t write “explain.’

He believes that one can prove the ways of God to man by an examination of Nature. Purpose

Reason: 

Say first, of God above or Man below

What can we reason but from what we know?

Of man what see we but his station here,

From which to reason, or to which refer?

Just as God created the universe out of his Reason, we can use that same Reason to understand the universe.

To do so, we have to just take our own surroundings and then expand. Reason

Pride and Presumption:

Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,

Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?

First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!

Ask of thy mother earth why oaks are made

Taller or stronger than the weeds

they shade!

Pope writes about the human tendency to question God, to ask why. Why do bad things happen? Why are we born flawed?

Remember that this is not a theoretical question for Pope. His physical deformities and illnesses were a constant struggle

. Pope notes that we never ask why we weren’t born less, we only question why not better

. In other words, we are presumptuous and prideful rather than grateful. Pride and Presumption