Editing Alexander Pope (section)

==Poetry==
[[File:Mawson Arms 01.JPG|thumb|[[Mawson Arms]], Chiswick Lane, with [[blue plaque]] to Pope]]

===''Essay on Criticism''===
{{main|An Essay on Criticism}}
''[[An Essay on Criticism]]'' was first published anonymously on 15 May 1711. Pope began writing the poem early in his career and took about three years to finish it.

At the time the poem was published, its [[heroic couplet]] style was quite a new poetic form and Pope's work an ambitious attempt to identify and refine his own positions as a poet and critic. It was said to be a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past.<ref name="Rogers 2006"/>

The "essay" begins with a discussion of the standard rules that govern poetry, by which a critic passes judgement. Pope comments on the classical authors who dealt with such standards and the authority he believed should be accredited to them. He discusses the laws to which a critic should adhere while analysing poetry, pointing out the important function critics perform in aiding poets with their works, as opposed to simply attacking them.<ref name="Baines 2001"/> The final section of ''An Essay on Criticism'' discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in an ideal critic, whom Pope claims is also the ideal man.

===''The Rape of the Lock''===
Pope's most famous poem is ''[[The Rape of the Lock]]'', first published in 1712, with a revised version in 1714. A [[mock-epic]], it satirises a high-society quarrel between [[Arabella Fermor]] (the "Belinda" of the poem) and [[Robert Petre, 7th Baron Petre|Lord Petre]], who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without permission. The satirical style is tempered, however, by a genuine, almost voyeuristic interest in the "beau-monde" (fashionable world) of 18th-century society.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.english-literature.org/essays/alexander-pope.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080531103412/http://www.english-literature.org/essays/alexander-pope.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=31 May 2008 |title=from the London School of Journalism.}}</ref> The revised, extended version of the poem focuses more clearly on its true subject: the onset of acquisitive individualism and a society of conspicuous consumers. In the poem, purchased artefacts displace human agency and "trivial things" come to dominate.<ref>Colin Nicholson (1994). ''Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century'', Cambridge.</ref>

===''The Dunciad'' and ''Moral Essays''===
[[File:Alexander Pope circa 1736.jpeg|thumb|upright|Alexander Pope, painting attributed to English painter [[Jonathan Richardson]], c. 1736, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]

Though ''[[The Dunciad]]'' first appeared anonymously in [[Dublin]], its authorship was not in doubt. Pope pilloried a host of other "hacks", "scribblers" and "dunces" in addition to Theobald, and Maynard Mack has accordingly called its publication "in many ways the greatest act of folly in Pope's life". Though a masterpiece due to having become "one of the most challenging and distinctive works in the history of English poetry", writes Mack, "it bore bitter fruit. It brought the poet in his own time the hostility of its victims and their sympathizers, who pursued him implacably from then on with a few damaging truths and a host of slanders and lies."<ref>Maynard Mack (1985). ''Alexander Pope: A Life''. W. W. Norton & Company, and [[Yale University Press]], pp. 472–473. {{ISBN|0393305295}}</ref>

According to his half-sister Magdalen Rackett, some of Pope's targets were so enraged by ''The Dunciad'' that they threatened him physically. "My brother does not seem to know what fear is," she told [[Joseph Spence (author)|Joseph Spence]], explaining that Pope loved to walk alone, so went accompanied by his [[Great Dane]] Bounce, and for some time carried pistols in his pocket.<ref>Joseph Spence. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030979424;view=1up;seq=52 ''Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, Collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope'' (1820), p. 38] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402171055/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030979424;view=1up;seq=52 |date=2 April 2023 }}.</ref> This first ''Dunciad'', along with [[John Gay]]'s ''[[The Beggar's Opera]]'' and Jonathan Swift's ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', joined in a concerted propaganda assault against [[Robert Walpole]]'s Whig ministry and the financial revolution it stabilised. Although Pope was a keen participant in the stock and money markets, he never missed a chance to satirise the personal, social and political effects of the new scheme of things. From ''The Rape of the Lock'' onwards, these satirical themes appear constantly in his work.

In 1731, Pope published his "Epistle to [[Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington|Burlington]]", on the subject of architecture, the first of four poems later grouped as the ''[[Moral Essays]]'' (1731–1735).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3487|title=Moral Essays|access-date=9 August 2021|archive-date=9 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809153723/https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3487|url-status=live}}</ref> The epistle ridicules the bad taste of the aristocrat "Timon".<ref name="Moral Essays">Alexander Pope. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTQjrVbjerwC ''Moral Essays''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230421091327/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTQjrVbjerwC |date=21 April 2023 }}, p. 82</ref> For example, the following are verses 99 and 100 of the Epistle:

{{blockquote
|At Timon's Villa let us paſs a day,<br>Where all cry out, "What ſums are thrown away!"<ref name="Moral Essays"/>
}}

Pope's foes claimed he was attacking the [[James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos|Duke of Chandos]] and his estate, [[Cannons (house)|Cannons]]. Though the charge was untrue, it did much damage to Pope.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

There has been some speculation on a feud between Pope and [[Thomas Hearne (antiquarian)|Thomas Hearne]], due in part to the character of Wormius in ''The Dunciad'', who is seemingly based on Hearne.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rogers |first=Pat |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/607099760 |title=The Alexander Pope encyclopedia |date=2004 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=0-313-06153-X |location=Westport, Conn. |oclc=607099760}}</ref>

===''An Essay on Man''===
{{main|An Essay on Man}}
''[[An Essay on Man]]'' is a philosophical poem in heroic couplets published between 1732 and 1734. Pope meant it as the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics to be put forth in poetic form. It was a piece that he sought to make into a larger work, but he did not live to complete it.<ref name="Nuttal 1984"/> It
attempts to "vindicate the ways of God to Man", a variation on Milton's attempt in ''Paradise Lost'' to "justify the ways of God to Man" (1.26). It challenges as prideful an anthropocentric worldview. The poem is not solely Christian, however. It assumes that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation.<ref name="Nuttal 1984"/>

Consisting of four epistles addressed to [[Lord Bolingbroke]], it presents an idea of Pope's view of the Universe: no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe may be, it functions in a rational fashion according to natural laws, so that the Universe as a whole is a perfect work of God, though to humans it appears to be evil and imperfect in many ways. Pope ascribes this to our limited mindset and intellectual capacity. He argues that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain of Being", at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. Accomplish this and we potentially could lead happy and virtuous lives.<ref name="Nuttal 1984"/>

The poem is an affirmative statement of faith: life seems chaotic and confusing to man in the centre of it, but according to Pope it is truly divinely ordered. In Pope's world, God exists and is what he centres the Universe around as an ordered structure. The limited intelligence of man can only take in tiny portions of this order and experience only partial truths, hence man must rely on hope, which then leads to faith. Man must be aware of his existence in the Universe and what he brings to it in terms of riches, power and fame. Pope proclaims that man's duty is to strive to be good, regardless of other situations.<ref name="Cassirer"/>{{Failed verification|date=August 2022}}

===Later life and works=== 
{{Quote box |width=225px |align=left |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote =<poem>
FATHER of all! in every age,
:In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
:[[Jehovah]], [[Jove]], or Lord!

If I am right, thy grace impart
:Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O, teach my heart
:To find that better way!

Save me alike from foolish pride,
:Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
:Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
:To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
:That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,
:Since quickened by thy breath;
O, lead me wheresoe'er I go,
:Through this day's life or death! 

To thee, whose temple is all space,
:Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all Being raise!
:All Nature's incense rise! 
</poem>|author=Pope|source ="The Universal Prayer"<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=kXd4bRr71a4C&dq=Oliver+Wendell+Holmes+Katydid&pg=PA269 ''A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from The Best Poets. With An Introduction by William Cullen Bryant''], New York, J. B. Ford and Company, 1871, pp. 269-270.</ref>}} 

[[File:Alexander Pope dying.png|thumb|The death of Alexander Pope from ''Museus'', a [[threnody]] by [[William Mason (poet)|William Mason]]. [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]] holds the dying Pope, and [[John Milton]], [[Edmund Spenser]], and [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] prepare to welcome him to heaven.]]

The ''Imitations of Horace'' that followed (1733–1738) were written in the popular Augustan form of an "imitation" of a classical poet, not so much a translation of his works as an updating with contemporary references. Pope used the model of [[Horace]] to satirise life under [[George II of Great Britain|George II]], especially what he saw as the widespread corruption tainting the country under Walpole's influence and the poor quality of the court's artistic taste. Pope added as an introduction to ''Imitations'' a wholly original poem that reviews his own literary career and includes famous portraits of Lord [[John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey|Hervey]] ("[[Sporus]]"), [[Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull]] ("Balbus") and Addison ("Atticus").

In 1738 came "The Universal Prayer".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/pope_a/prayer.html |title=Alexander Pope 'Universal Prayer' |author=McKeown, Trevor W. |work=bcy.ca |access-date=12 April 2007 |archive-date=28 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170128120922/http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/pope_a/prayer.html |url-status=live }} [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o3702-w0010.shtml Full-text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160617083225/http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o3702-w0010.shtml |date=17 June 2016 }}. Also at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA).</ref>

Among the younger poets whose work Pope admired was [[Joseph Thurston (poet)|Joseph Thurston]].<ref>James Sambrook (2004) "Thurston, Josephlocked (1704–1732)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford University Press. {{doi|10.1093/ref:odnb/70938}}</ref> After 1738, Pope himself wrote little. He toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called ''Brutus'', but only the opening lines survive. His major work in those years was to revise and expand his masterpiece, ''The Dunciad''. Book Four appeared in 1742 and a full revision of the whole poem the following year. Here Pope replaced the "hero" Lewis Theobald with the [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]], [[Colley Cibber]] as "king of dunces". However, the real focus of the revised poem is Walpole and his works. By now Pope's health, which had never been good, was failing. When told by his physician, on the morning of his death, that he was better, Pope replied: "Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ruffhead |first=Owen |title=The Life of Alexander Pope; With a Critical Essay on His Writings and Genius |url=https://archive.org/details/lifealexanderpo00ruffgoog |year=1769 |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifealexanderpo00ruffgoog/page/n479 475]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dyce |first=Alexander |title=The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, with a Life, by A. Dyce |year=1863 |page=cxxxi}}</ref> He died at his villa surrounded by friends on 30 May 1744, about eleven o'clock at night. On the previous day, 29 May 1744, Pope had called for a priest and received the [[Last Rites]] of the Catholic Church. He was buried in the nave of [[St Mary's Church, Twickenham]].