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Major works
Pope was considered as an
essayist, a critic, satirist, and one of the greatest poets of
Enlightenment. His breakthrough work, An Essay On Criticism (1711),
appeared when he was twenty-three. It embodied the 18th- century concepts of
the universe and man’s place in it. Pope was optimistic in following his
century’s beliefs that man was made in the shape of God and occupied a
middle position in the Great Chain of Being. While he should never aspire
for any place higher than that, which was given to him by God, man could
still hold high his head and be lord over the infinitesimal multitude of
creatures inferior to him.
An Essay on Criticism is a brilliant exposition
of the canons of taste, which derives standards of taste from the order of
nature:
“Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Pope in this writing perfected the heroic couplet: he
perfected the match of rhyme, but within the neat rhyme, he gave it variety
through caesura. In addition, he united the sound, form and meaning
perfectly. For instance, when criticized the unbearable poor poets, he
described:
“And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:”
Use ten monosyllables to imitate their clumsy lines
creeping slowly. Besides, Pope’s language was direct and compact. His exact
matching of thought with speech produced many neat expressions, and a great
number of quotable lines that have passed into everyday speech as popular
sayings, such as ：
“ For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
“ A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
“The proper study of mankind is man,”
“An honest man’s the noblest work of God.”
As a piece of literary theory, it lacked original
ideas. However, although Pope was never profound in thought, he was very
adept in voicing the idea of his contemporaries in a beautiful and clever
way. Its significance came from its assertion that literary criticism was an
art form and should function actively like a living organism.
The Rape of the Lock is a brilliant satire written
in the form of a mock-heroic poem. It offers a typical example of the 18th
century classical style, and a satirical view as well of the tastes,
manners, and morals of the fashionable world in Queen Anne’s reign. It is
Pope’s most famous poem.
Its first version consisted of two cantos (1712) and
the final version five cantos (1714). The Rape of the Lock was based
on a quarrel between two families with whom Pope was acquainted. It was
caused by Lord Petre who cutting off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor’s hair.
The poem recounts the story of a young woman, Belinda. When she wakes up,
Pope describes devotedly her exotic cosmetics and beauty aids. She plays
cards, flirts, drinks coffee, and has a lock of hair stolen by an ardent
young man.
“The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, forever, and forever!
The flashed the living lightning from her eyes,”
Pope gives this trivial event an extended
mock-heroic treatment. The poem comments ironically on the contemporary
social world, high-society preoccupations, and perhaps suggests a reform.
Besides, the poem shows Pope’s admiration to the vanity world as well.
Admired, because he was an outsider. And since he is an outsider, he can see
more clear of the people’s vanity and sneering at it sharper.
It is a fascinated art, through vivid
description, the characters alive. The whole layout is perfect, while the
details are full of adeptness. Employed the rhetorical device and rhymes,
the whole world was like a toyshop of ladies’ heart:
“With varying vanities, from every part,
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart;
Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword knots strive,
Beaux banish beaux, and counches counches drive.”
In his Essay on Man, Pope used the heroic
couplet with exceptional brilliance by introducing epistle into it, giving
it a witty, occasionally biting quality. His success made it the dominated
poetic form of his century; and this work was translated into many
languages. Pope employed poetry to write letters—which was a long-existent
custom, because it was elegant, compact and oral which right fit to be the
social communicative instrument of intellectuals. Compact with oral can make
the talk not so intensified, while oral with compact make the talk fluent
and vivid. The combination of compact and oral makes Pope’s poems both
forceful and elegant.
Although Pope’s perspective is well above our everyday
life, he does not hide his wide knowledge. His work is suggestive, dramatic,
exciting, and sometimes even comfortably concrete:
“Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heaven unkind to Man, and Man alone?”
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