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84-418: The Poly-Olbion is a topographical poem describing England and Wales . Written by Michael Drayton (1563–1631) and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a second part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598. The Poly-Olbion is divided into thirty songs, written in alexandrine couplets, consisting in total of almost 15,000 lines of verse. Drayton intended to compose

168-532: A Poem (written in Dublin 1772). The Lakes of Killarney and the Giant's Causeway were the two most common sites that inspired Irish topographical verse: Patrick O'Kelley's Killarney: A Descriptive Poem and The Giant's Causeway , Joseph Atkinson's Killarney: A Poem , W. A. Bryson's "Moonlight Scenes at Killarney," Rev. Charles Hoyle's Three Days at Killarney , Rev. William Hamilton Drummond's The Giant's Causeway,

252-581: A Poem , John McKinley's Poetic Sketches, Descriptive of the Giant's Causeway, and the Surrounding Scenery are some other examples, all published between 1803 and 1809. John Wilson Foster defines the term "prospect" in the poetic understanding of spatial and temporal meanings: A prospect is a view into the distance (space); it is also a view into the future (distance in time), often with the suggestion of opportunity or expectation: in each case,

336-423: A change in the course of the genre. Increasingly, the landscape and the issues implicit in it, once registered by the poet's external sight, become internalised and subject to inward contemplation Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with any eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and

420-481: A chaplet culled/ For worthless brows". James Thomson 's long poem The Seasons provided an influential new model using Miltonic blank verse in place of the couplet. But it appeals to a class-specific social ideology by placing the landed gentry 's authority on a level with the order of nature. The fierce snowstorm in "Winter", for example, is awe-inspiring but only dangerous for the generalized rustic shepherd struggling through it rather than reading about it, and

504-615: A characteristic of prospect poems. Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature , Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock , The Dunciad , and An Essay on Criticism , and for his translations of Homer . Pope

588-451: A child Pope survived once being trampled by a cow , but when he was 12 he began struggling with tuberculosis of the spine ( Pott disease ), which restricted his growth, so that he was only 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres) tall as an adult. He also suffered from crippling headaches. In the year 1709, Pope showcased his precocious metrical skill with the publication of Pastorals , his first major poems. They earned him instant fame. By

672-519: A classical or contemporary political or aesthetic ideal," such that he supports the idea of landscape poetry as an imitable type of "social praxis" thus belonging to "a specifically political and social dynamic." He relates the minutiae of living nature and the effect of the seasons, makes a politically charged digression, takes on a prospect-view, represents different times of day, caves, and rivers, and alludes to classical guardianship. Both Bethell and Gisborne include extensive footnotes that elaborate on

756-444: 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 Burlington ", on

840-402: A continuance of Pope's tradition – William Wordsworth found Pope's style too decadent to represent the human condition. George Gilfillan in an 1856 study called Pope's talent "a rose peering into the summer air, fine, rather than powerful". Pope's reputation revived in the 20th century. His work was full of references to the people and places of his time, which aided people's understanding of

924-488: A further part to cover Scotland , but no part of this work is known to have survived. Each song describes between one and three counties, describing their topography, traditions and histories . Copies were illustrated with maps of each county, drawn by William Hole , whereon places were depicted anthropomorphically . The first book was accompanied by historical and philological summaries written by John Selden . Because of its length and its author's conflicting goals

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1008-430: A non-threatening aesthetic one, socially legitimized this dominance. Yet for this same implicit social and political message and the way it was connected to nature, landscape poetry became a vehicle for William Wordsworth, Coleridge , and the later Romantics to offer new ways of understanding the landscape's relationship with poetry and politics. Indeed, Wordsworth's " Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey " marks

1092-593: A poem published at the start of the First English Civil War : Here should my wonder dwell, & here my praise, But my fixt thoughts my wandring eye betrays, Viewing a neighbouring hill, whose top of late A Chappel crown'd, till in the Common Fate, The adjoyning Abby fell: (may no such storm Fall on our times, where ruine must reform.) Tell me (my Muse) what monstrous dire offence, What crime could any Christian King incense To such

1176-447: A prospect is a view of something beyond, yet to be achieved or satisfying merely in the spectacle. Understood in both its spatial and temporal senses, the prospect was a frequent culmination of traditional allegory... The early topographical poems of the 17th century and 18th century centered on urban locales of power and often described aspects of the city such as buildings, major rivers and parks. Later topographical poems written during

1260-583: A rage? The chapel and abbey in ruins on top of a nearby hill were the result of the reformist zeal that led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries . Now the religious spirit unleashed under royal auspices had come to question the constitutionality of the Divine right of kings which had allowed the dismantling of those ancient institutions in the first place. Later in the poem, the historical perspective

1344-593: A scathing pamphlet called Shakespeare Restored , which catalogued the errors in Pope's work and suggested several revisions to the text. This enraged Pope, wherefore Theobald became the main target of Pope's Dunciad . The second edition of Pope's Shakespeare appeared in 1728. Apart from some minor revisions to the preface, it seems that Pope had little to do with it. Most later 18th-century editors of Shakespeare dismissed Pope's creatively motivated approach to textual criticism. Pope's preface continued to be highly rated. It

1428-493: A translation of the Iliad . The work would be available by subscription , with one volume appearing every year over six years. Pope secured a revolutionary deal with the publisher Bernard Lintot, which earned him 200 guineas (£210) a volume, a vast sum at the time. His Iliad translation appeared between 1715 and 1720. It was acclaimed by Samuel Johnson as "a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal". Conversely,

1512-456: A villa at Twickenham , where he created his now-famous grotto and gardens. The serendipitous discovery of a spring during the excavation of the subterranean retreat enabled it to be filled with the relaxing sound of trickling water, which would quietly echo around the chambers. Pope was said to have remarked, "Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything." Although the house and gardens have long since been demolished, much of

1596-424: A well-established and critiqued genre meant for public appraisal: The opinions of many learned men on the subject of descriptive poetry, and its occasional embellishments, having differed considerably when their abilities were exercised in examining the productions of authors of the first literary eminence, presented a difficulty of choice in regard to the plan and execution of the subsequent undertaking. It has been

1680-438: A wholly original poem that reviews his own literary career and includes famous portraits of Lord Hervey (" Sporus "), Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull ("Balbus") and Addison ("Atticus"). In 1738 came "The Universal Prayer". Among the younger poets whose work Pope admired was Joseph Thurston . After 1738, Pope himself wrote little. He toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called Brutus , but only

1764-529: Is false. He had been gay [happy], but left that way of life upon his acquaintance with Mrs. B." In May 1709, Pope's Pastorals was published in the sixth part of bookseller Jacob Tonson 's Poetical Miscellanies . This earned Pope instant fame and was followed by An Essay on Criticism , published in May 1711, which was equally well received. Around 1711, Pope made friends with Tory writers Jonathan Swift , Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot , who together formed

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1848-674: Is often quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations , some of his verses having entered common parlance (e.g. " damning with faint praise " or " to err is human; to forgive, divine "). Alexander Pope was born in London on 21 May 1688 during the year of the Glorious Revolution . His father (Alexander Pope, 1646–1717) was a successful linen merchant in the Strand , London . His mother, Edith (née Turner, 1643–1733),

1932-492: Is on the personal pronoun. A change in the perception and evaluation of landscape was one mark of the entrance into the era of British Romanticism . Visual and literary art as well as political and philosophical prose recorded this change. Especially after William Gilpin 's Observations on the River Wye was published in 1782, the idea of the picturesque began to influence artists and viewers. Gilpin advocated approaching

2016-519: Is tempered, however, by a genuine, almost voyeuristic interest in the "beau-monde" (fashionable world) of 18th-century society. 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. Though The Dunciad first appeared anonymously in Dublin , its authorship

2100-464: Is widened to include the signing of Magna Carta . In fact the poem has been credited since as a major influence on the landscape's cultural history, especially in establishing the site of Runnymede in the national consciousness. For decades the poem served as the admired loco-descriptive model, earning for Denham an accolade from Alexander Pope in his own youthful imitation, "Windsor Forest": On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow While lasts

2184-485: The Mosella of Ausonius , which had its own political agenda. For a purer celebration of country crafts there was the precedent of Vergil 's Georgics behind John Philips ' "Cyder" and "The Fleece" by John Dyer . Romantic regard for the latter, who was also the author of the topographical " Grongar Hill ", is evidenced by William Wordsworth 's sonnet in his praise, preferring him to those for whom "hasty Fame hath many

2268-546: The Poly-Olbion was almost never read as a whole, but is an important source for the period nevertheless. Drayton strained to combine correct scientific information about Britain (mostly contained in Selden's commentary) with his desire to provide as many memorial anchors to the elusive ancient Celtic Britons , Druids, Bards, and King Arthur as possible. Topographical poem Subgenres of topographical poetry include

2352-471: The country house poem , written in 17th-century England to compliment a wealthy patron, and the prospect poem, describing the view from a distance or a temporal view into the future, with the sense of opportunity or expectation. When understood broadly as landscape poetry and when assessed from its establishment to the present, topographical poetry can take on many formal situations and types of places. Kenneth Baker identifies 37 varieties and compiles poems from

2436-687: 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. 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

2520-652: The 16th through the 20th centuries—from Edmund Spenser to Sylvia Plath —correspondent to each type, from "Walks and Surveys", to "Mountains, Hills, and the View from Above", to "Violation of Nature and the Landscape", to "Spirits and Ghosts". Common aesthetic registers of which topographical poetry make use include pastoral imagery, the sublime , and the picturesque . These latter two registers subsume imagery of rivers, ruins, moonlight, birdsong, and clouds, peasants, mountains, caves, and waterscapes. Though predicated on

2604-589: The Digression.—Local Scenery near Wootton.—Mr. Gilpin.—Scenery in the New Forest.—Accent up Wever Hills.—Address to the Clouds and Breezes.—Wever : Scenery from his Summit.—River Dove.—Grindon.—Thor's Cave. Gisborne utilizes a number of characteristic conventions, "the invocation to a lord or patron, the stationing of the lord or poet, the ordering of subjects according to a visual plan, the comparison with

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2688-533: The Irish topographical poetry from the British. At times these explanations subordinate aesthetic description. Furthermore, Ireland experienced an "anxiety with respect to its own national audience," and the poets often intervened to remark on their negotiation of Irish land's clear aesthetic and economic appeals and the reality of its impoverishment. One prime example of these complications is John Leslie's Killarney,

2772-522: The Lock ), was twenty years older than the poet and had made many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the ageing playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh , a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals . There, he met the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha (Patty) , in 1707. He remained close friends with Patty until his death, but his friendship with Teresa ended in 1722. From

2856-492: The Memory of an Unfortunate Lady and the famous proto-romantic poem Eloisa to Abelard . Though Pope never married, about this time he became strongly attached to Lady M. Montagu, whom he indirectly referenced in his popular Eloisa to Abelard , and to Martha Blount, with whom his friendship continued through his life. As a satirist , Pope made his share of enemies as critics, politicians and certain other prominent figures felt

2940-804: The Seasons.—A Digression.—Pillars of Ice during the Winter from the Rocks.—Frost, his Threats.—Triumph of Flora.—Empress of Russia. –Her Threats.—The Fall of Poland. –Probable Triumph of Poland.—General Washington on the Temple of Virtue crowned by Liberty and Peace.—Wootton under the Influence of Snow-storms and Wind at Midnight : Effects of the Storm on the Hare, Fieldfare, and Village Dog, &c.—Sun-rife.—Return from

3024-592: 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. 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

3108-459: 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

3192-512: The abdication of James II . One of these banned them from living within ten miles of London, another from attending public school or university. So except for a few spurious Catholic schools , Pope was largely self-educated . He was taught to read by his aunt and became a book lover, reading in French, Italian, Latin and Greek and discovering Homer at the age of six. In 1700, when only twelve years of age, he wrote his poem Ode on Solitude . As

3276-425: The age of 12 he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott disease , a form of tuberculosis that affects the spine, which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain. He grew to a height of only 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres). Pope

3360-437: The age of 23, he had written An Essay on Criticism , released in 1711. A kind of poetic manifesto in the vein of Horace 's Ars Poetica , it met with enthusiastic attention and won Pope a wider circle of prominent friends, notably Joseph Addison and Richard Steele , who had recently begun to collaborate on the influential The Spectator . The critic John Dennis , having found an ironic and veiled portrait of himself,

3444-478: The charge was untrue, it did much damage to Pope. There has been some speculation on a feud between Pope and Thomas Hearne , due in part to the character of Wormius in The Dunciad , who is seemingly based on Hearne. 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

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3528-466: The classical scholar Richard Bentley wrote: "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer." Encouraged by the success of the Iliad , Bernard Lintot published Pope's five-volume translation of Homer's Odyssey in 1725–1726. For this Pope collaborated with William Broome and Elijah Fenton : Broome translated eight books (2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, 23), Fenton four (1, 4, 19, 20) and Pope

3612-779: The conventions of the genre in only the first canto of his poem The vales of Wever, a loco-descriptive poem, inscribed to the Reverend John Granville, of Calwich, Straffordshire : ADDRESS to Wotton.—Noontide Clouds.—Scenery from the Terrace at Wootton.—Eaton Woods.—Mr. Mundy.—Address to Hygeia as Guardian of the Scene.—Different Trees growing in the Vale below Wootton.—Scenery by Moonlight.—Melna and Ghost of Hidallan.—Norbury.—An aged Oak : Insects living under its Bark.—The Spider.—Hygeia entreated to preside over Wootton in all

3696-738: The countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest . Pope's formal education ended at this time, and from then on, he mostly educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal , the epic poets Homer and Virgil , as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer , William Shakespeare and John Dryden . He studied many languages, reading works by French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from London literary society such as William Congreve , Samuel Garth and William Trumbull . At Binfield he made many important friends. One of them, John Caryll (the future dedicatee of The Rape of

3780-493: The deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. Recent criticism has used close readings of the poem to question the efficacy of such internalisation in that it seems deliberately to avoid evidence of the human interaction with the landscape that was the focus of earlier poets. For example, Marjorie Levinson views him "as managing to see into the life of things only 'by narrowing and skewing his field of vision' and by excluding 'certain conflictual sights and meanings'". Nor

3864-482: The description of a landscape or piece of scenery, topographical poetry often, at least implicitly, addresses a social or political issue or the meaning of nationality in some way. The description of elements in the landscape thus becomes a poetic vehicle through which a personal interpretation is delivered. For example, in John Denham's "Cooper's Hill", the speaker discusses the effects of religious intolerance in

3948-468: The efforts of the poet. The argument for the picturesque's connection to a unifying national identity in England could not be successfully translated into Irish topographical poetry. Historical references often account for more than one culture and negotiate the tension between local situations and imperial prerogatives, and thus tend toward an explanatory narrative of Irish institutions which distinguishes

4032-465: 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! Pope, "The Universal Prayer" The Imitations of Horace that followed (1733–1738) were written in

4116-679: The fortunes of the Tories , and Pope's friend Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke , fled to France. This was added to by the Impeachment of the former Tory Chief Minister Lord Oxford . Pope lived in his parents' house in Mawson Row, Chiswick , between 1716 and 1719; the red-brick building is now the Mawson Arms , commemorating him with a blue plaque . The money made from his translation of Homer allowed Pope to move in 1719 to

4200-403: The grotto survives beneath Radnor House Independent Co-educational School. The grotto has been restored and will open to the public for 30 weekends a year from 2023 under the auspices of Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust. 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

4284-635: 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." 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 , explaining that Pope loved to walk alone, so went accompanied by his Great Dane Bounce, and for some time carried pistols in his pocket. This first Dunciad , along with John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels , joined in

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4368-421: The influence of Longinus via Dennis. Some scholars argue that the crystallization of the picturesque and the sublime as aesthetic categories coincided with a social trend toward "presumptions of unity" based on an increasingly consolidated national identity in the second half of the 18th century. Almost every community, according to Robert Aubin's catalogue, merited landscape poetry. Thus, this argument connects

4452-525: The landscape "by the rules of picturesque beauty," which emphasized contrast and variety. Edmund Burke 's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) was previously an influential text. The notion of the sublime in language, marked by elevated rhetoric or speech, dates to Grecian Late Antiquity , Longinus ' On the Sublime , which was translated into French in

4536-538: The landscapes they contemplated, from 'Nature', the poets of the 19th century bring their private preoccupations with them into the landscape. This is so even when there is an appeal to the Classical past. Matthew Arnold on "Dover Beach" calls to mind lines by Sophocles on listening to the sound of the sea but goes on to apply a modern religious lesson; it is "The Sea of Faith" of which "now I only hear/ Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar". The operative emphasis here

4620-423: The language of the sublime in nature to flatter Whig politicians, a move based in the dedication or compliment to a patron common to topographical poetry in the early 18th century. The prospect-view was central in the early 18th century to the landed estates' relationship with poetry. It suggested that the natural scene corresponded with political dominance, and the presentation of a disinterested but shared value,

4704-401: The late 17th century. Shortly thereafter in England, John Dennis brought attention to Longinus' argument for the emotive power of figurative language in poetry. From this time, and into the mid-18th century, a taste for the sublime in landscape emerged with the sublime in language. An earlier topographical poem that influenced the romantics, James Thomson 's The Seasons (1726–30), reveals

4788-420: The moral qualities and virtues inherent in an ideal critic, whom Pope claims is also the ideal man. 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 Lord Petre , who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without permission. The satirical style

4872-449: The mountain, or while Thames shall flow. Later critics, however, were to deprecate in such poems and their successors "the complete subordination of the beauties of Nature to ethical and political reflection". Such judgements, though, grew up in the wake of the new taste for Romanticism at the end of the 18th century. Until then landscape poetry appealed to Classical models. Besides Denham's poem, Pope's "Windsor Forest" modeled itself on

4956-434: The object of the writer to profit by the sentiments of professed critics, given on the works familiar to his own, and by avoiding either extreme, to pursue, as far as his judgment enabled him, an intermediate course. How far he has succeeded in that endeavor, is humbly submitted to the decision of a generous public... Another average poet in the topographical poetry of the late 18th century, John Grisborne , canvasses many of

5040-487: 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 , 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,

5124-418: The particular places mentioned throughout their poems. In these notes, they often address the reader by presuming his or her response, belief or disbelief in the scene. These annotations, while perhaps distracting from the verse's force in its own right, show how the genre was conscious of its readership's potential to either actually witness the scenes as a tourist or be able to vicariously witness them through

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5208-414: 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. The "essay" begins with a discussion of

5292-412: 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 , 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

5376-449: The prominence of the aesthetic viewpoint that the genre maintained to "the formation of a national culture." Because the picturesque conventions of landscape poetry strengthened the middle class's relationship to an aesthetic paradigm, the emerging class consciousness unified itself around a shared perception of nature. In his preface to Llangunnor Hill: a loco-descriptive Poem, John Bethell announces his awareness of his participation in

5460-462: The remaining twelve. Broome provided the annotations. Pope tried to conceal the extent of the collaboration, but the secret leaked out. It did some damage to Pope's reputation for a time, but not to his profits. Leslie Stephen considered Pope's portion of the Odyssey inferior to his version of the Iliad , given that Pope had put more effort into the earlier work – to which, in any case, his style

5544-411: The romantic period moved away from cities and into the provinces. Romantic poets also rejected the scientific and informative approach employed by the early topographical poets. Instead of being scientific observers, the romantic poets who wrote prospect poems tried to create a sense of a presence and emotion that gave life to the landscape. Topographical poetry, especially the prospect poem, moved from

5628-457: The satirical Scriblerus Club . Its aim was to satirise ignorance and pedantry through the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus. He also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele . In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim. During Pope's friendship with Joseph Addison, he contributed to Addison's play Cato , as well as writing for The Guardian and The Spectator . Around this time, he began

5712-452: The scientific and geographical description to become a venue for personal, historical and meditative thought. Brigitte Peucker describes that "nature in the topographical poem is not a medium of human transcendence or transformation but rather an emblem or mirror of the perambulatory figure in the foreground—of man as man". The prospect when seen through the muse or imagination provides an escape from time and reality. Shifts in tense are often

5796-460: 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. The final section of An Essay on Criticism discusses

5880-418: The sting of his sharp-witted satires. Some were so virulent that Pope even carried pistols while walking his dog. In 1738 and thenceforth, Pope composed relatively little. He began having ideas for a patriotic epic in blank verse titled Brutus , but mainly revised and expanded his Dunciad . Book Four appeared in 1742; and a complete revision of the whole in the year that followed. At this time Lewis Theobald

5964-594: The subject of architecture, the first of four poems later grouped as the Moral Essays (1731–1735). The epistle ridicules the bad taste of the aristocrat "Timon". For example, the following are verses 99 and 100 of the Epistle: At Timon's Villa let us paſs a day, Where all cry out, "What ſums are thrown away!" Pope's foes claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons . Though

6048-470: The sympathy engendered through the former only serves to reaffirm the sensibility and political righteousness of the gentry. Thus, the importance and inevitability of submitting to the authority of nature is connected to the importance of maintaining social order, which the landed classes can do from their relatively safe position in the schema of the poem. In later editions of The Seasons , Thomson becomes increasingly explicit about his political message, using

6132-840: The work of translating the Iliad , which was a painstaking process – publication began in 1715 and did not end until 1720. In 1714 the political situation worsened with the death of Queen Anne and the disputed succession between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites , leading to the Jacobite rising of 1715 . Though Pope, as a Catholic, might have been expected to have supported the Jacobites because of his religious and political affiliations, according to Maynard Mack , "where Pope himself stood on these matters can probably never be confidently known". These events led to an immediate downturn in

6216-650: Was Wordsworth's 'egotistical sublime' much admired by the next generation of Romantic poets. The Radicalism espoused by Percy Bysshe Shelley invades his contemplation of landscape in "Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills" and is everywhere apparent in Lord Byron 's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage . The transition, even in their case however, has been to a subjective viewpoint. Where the Classically inspired poets claimed to draw their idea of order from

6300-564: Was a piece that he sought to make into a larger work, but he did not live to complete it. 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. Consisting of four epistles addressed to Lord Bolingbroke , it presents an idea of Pope's view of

6384-477: Was already removed from society as a Catholic, and his poor health alienated him further. Although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters, including Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . It has been alleged that his lifelong friend Martha Blount was his lover. His friend William Cheselden said, according to Joseph Spence , "I could give a more particular account of Mr. Pope's health than perhaps any man. Cibber 's slander (of carnosity)

6468-440: Was better suited. In this period, Pope was employed by the publisher Jacob Tonson to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare. When it appeared in 1725, it silently regularised Shakespeare's metre and rewrote his verse in several places. Pope also removed about 1,560 lines of Shakespeare's material, arguing that some appealed to him more than others. In 1726, the lawyer, poet and pantomime-deviser Lewis Theobald published

6552-635: 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." 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 . Pope had been fascinated by Homer since childhood. In 1713, he announced plans to publish

6636-421: 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

6720-399: Was outraged by what he saw as the impudence of a younger author. Dennis hated Pope for the rest of his life, and save for a temporary reconciliation, dedicated his efforts to insulting him in print, to which Pope retaliated in kind, making Dennis the butt of much satire. A folio containing a collection of his poems appeared in 1717, along with two new ones about the passion of love: Verses to

6804-738: Was replaced with the Poet Laureate Colley Cibber as "king of dunces", but his real target remained the Whig politician Robert Walpole . By the mid-18th century, new fashions in poetry emerged. A decade after Pope's death, Joseph Warton claimed that Pope's style was not the most excellent form of the art. The Romantic movement that rose to prominence in early 19th-century England was more ambivalent about his work. Though Lord Byron identified Pope as one of his chief influences – believing his own scathing satire of contemporary English literature English Bards and Scotch Reviewers to be

6888-400: Was suggested that Shakespeare's texts were thoroughly contaminated by actors' interpolations and they would influence editors for most of the 18th century. Pope's poetic career testifies to an indomitable spirit despite disadvantages of health and circumstance. The poet and his family were Catholics and so fell subject to the prohibitive Test Acts , which hampered their co-religionists after

6972-557: Was taught to read by his aunt and attended Twyford School circa 1698. He also attended two Roman Catholic schools in London. Such schools, though still illegal, were tolerated in some areas. In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood , in Binfield , Berkshire , close to the royal Windsor Forest . This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing " Papists " from living within 10 miles (16 km) of London or Westminster. Pope would later describe

7056-475: Was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York . Both parents were Catholics . His mother's sister, Christiana, was the wife of famous miniature painter Samuel Cooper . Pope's education was affected by the recently enacted Test Acts , a series of English penal laws that upheld the status of the established Church of England , banning Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, and holding public office on penalty of perpetual imprisonment. Pope

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