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Pope
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POPE
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed
(Essay on Criticism)
Alexander Pope was, like Dryden after 1685, a Catholic, and therefore an
outsider in the Protestant-dominated society of the early eighteenth century.
The two men were, however, of totally different generations and background.
Pope was 12 when Dryden died, and was suffering from the spinal disease
which left him deformed and sickly for the rest of his life.
Pope had, in common with Dryden, considerable success in translating
Greek and Latin classics – especially Homer – into English, and also
prepared a noted, if flawed, edition of Shakespeare, in 1725. But he
never engaged in serious political, philosophical, and religious debate
on the scale that Dryden achieved. Perhaps because of his poor health,
Pope was something of a recluse, but he was very involved in high
society, and took sides on most of the political issues of his day. His
satires are full of savage invective against real or imagined enemies.
Pope’s sphere was social and intellectual. The Rape of the Lock
(1712–14), written when he was in his mid-twenties, is the essence of
the mock heroic. It makes a family quarrel, over a lock of hair, into
the subject of a playful poem full of paradoxes and witty observations
on the self-regarding world it depicts, as the stolen lock is transported
to the heavens to become a new star. ‘Fair tresses man’s imperial race
insnare’ makes Belinda’s hair an attractive trap for all mankind – a
linking of the trivial with the apparently serious, which is Pope’s most
frequent device in puncturing his targets’ self-importance.
This Nymph, to the Destruction of Mankind,
Nourish’d two Locks, which graceful hung behind
In equal Curls, and well conspir’d to deck
With shining Ringlets the smooth Iv’ry Neck.
Love in these Labyrinths his Slaves detains,
And mighty Hearts are held in slender Chains.
With hairy Springes we the Birds betray,
Slight Lines of Hair surprise the Finny Prey,