Alexander Pope Lesson

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In this lesson, we take a look at Alexander Pope's biography and its impact on his life, and then we'll look at epistolary literature and blank verse in preparation for a reading of Pope's Essay on Man, Epistle 1.

Below is the outline of the slides used in the lesson:

Alexander Pope Lesson
Brief Biography of Pope
Blank Verse and Epistolary Literature
Learning Objectives and Connections to the Project
Alexander Pope, 1688-1744
Lived and worked at a time in England when Catholics were subject to laws similar to the Jim Crow Laws of the American South
Early health problems left him undersized and physically disabled
Literature was just becoming something that people could do for a living
Alexander Pope
Key Enlightenment figure along with Jonathan Swift and Sir Isaac Newton
Blank Verse
Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter
Shakespeare's verse in the plays
The version of Antigone that we read
Maintained the tradition of poetry but with a more flexible, straightforward style that anticipated prose
Epistolary Literature
Epistle: a formal letter addressed to one audience for one occasion but written in a way that it can be read by a general audience
Most of the New Testament is Saint Paul's Epistles
Epistolary novels—The Color Purple
The Structure of "An Essay on Man, Epistle I"
Written in ten stanzas (a stanza is like the paragraph of a poem, but not exactly)
Introduction: greets his audience—St. John (a friend)
Gives the thesis of the essay: [to] "vindicate the ways of God to man"—meaning to show how God's ways rule mankind
The Structure of "An Essay on Man, Epistle I"
Stanza I: Pope takes a survey of the universe and asks his audience who made it and who's in charge—typical scientific approach to religion of the Enlightenment period
The Structure of "An Essay on Man, Epistle I"
Stanza II: Pope begins to point out that man's place in the universe is minor and unimportant—compare this to the Biblical view of man as the most special part of the creation
Stanza III: Pope points out that men really know very little, and while Europeans think they know more than Indians, they don't
The Structure of "An Essay on Man, Epistle I"
Stanza IV: Pope tells his audience to be wiser and that if man questions God about his place in the universe, he's acting like the fallen angels
Stanza V: This is perhaps the most devastating stanza in the epistle; it's Pope's personification of Pride as a selfish little brat
The Structure of "An Essay on Man, Epistle I"
Stanzas VI and VI: Pope points out that God has used Nature to give all animals their special powers and bodies—this is a typical Enlightenment view of Nature as a perfectly ordered system designed by the Master Architect (God the engineer or scientist)

The Structure of "An Essay on Man, Epistle I"
Stanzas VIII and IX: Pope continues to point out the evils of pride and questioning the perfection of Nature and man's place in it
Stanza X: Pope gives a very strong argument for humility and acceptance, ending with the chilling and humbling line: "whatever is, is right."
Learning Objectives
More exposure to blank verse and exposure to epistolary writing
More exposure to and practice in interpreting figurative language—especially personification and allusions
Reading poetry based on punctuation and not line breaks
Analyzing how figurative language creates meaning—written in essay format
Connection to the Project
Hubris is the Classical Greek idea of the kind of pride that leads to a fall
Pope undermines the hubris of the Enlightenment
Humans aren't that smart or special
Humans are just one part of God's larger creation
Humans should be more humble and accepting of the way things are
Pope counteracts Europe's growing sense of its self-importance and tries to reconnect his audience to humility
Lesson Completed—Good Job
I've also posted an audio "follow along" video online; it isn't much to look at, but it'll help you get the sound of Pope's poetry