Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub
[graphic]

of his day men and women, politicians and literary folk, English and French. His gardens were laid out after the French fashion, and were, like his poetry, models of "regularity, uniformity, precision, balance."

"The Dunciad.". - Another work which involved great and continued labor, which was little suited to Pope's abilities, but which was financially a successful venture, appeared

bero. V

carred t

Tas also cose. S

tended in

baid, who

of bero t

mcked

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

in the same year as the Odyssey - his edition of Shakspere. It cannot be said that Pope added greatly to our understanding or appreciation of the great dramatist. His edition was, however, responsible for his most important work in his most effective field, The Dunciad, or "Epic of Dunces."1 Lewis Theobald (Tibbald), the best Shakspere scholar of his day, published a volume pointing out Pope's numerous errors. Pope came back with his " epic," of which Theobald was the

1 Compare with Dryden's Mac Fleknoe, above, page 128.

The E

aside from

[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[graphic]

contemporaries, presents an amusing picture of Pope's
position. A literary power, he is sought by all, and the result
is not agreeable:

"Is there a parson much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,

Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?

Is there, who lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.

Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie."

"Essay on Man." - The Essay on Man is perhaps Pope's most ambitious work. It is a long philosophical poem on the text. "Whatever is, is right;" and seeks, using a phrase very similar to Milton's, to

"vindicate the ways of God to man."

As a whole, it cannot be understood without some knowledge of a great religious controversy of its day; but like all Pope's works, it is full of clean-cut, polished, quotable couplets.

"Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven."

"Know then this truth (enough for man to know):
'Virtue alone is happiness below.'""

It is in the perfected workmanship of detached passages

that Pope's real merit is found.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

by many quarrels, mostly, it would seem, provoked by him

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[graphic]
[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

We have said that the style of poetry begun by Dryden and established by Pope, both form and subject-matter, held sway throughout the eighteenth century. Writing by rule became the proper mode, the effect of which may be seen in that Pope's portions of his Odyssey are not strikingly distinguished from those of his (certainly inferior) colaborers. The heroic couplet was the accepted measure; contemporary society in its most superficial aspects was the accepted subject. Bold must be the man who ventured to depart from these. A few there were, however, who even in Pope's lifetime did break from the beaten track, and strike out in byways more congenial. Among the most notable of these was

JAMES THOMSON, 1700-1748

[ocr errors]

Forerunner of Romanticism. - In the year 1726, when Pope's popularity and influence were at their height, Thomson published a poem called Winter. Both as to subject and form it holds an important place in the history of English poetry. The matter of the poem is the "wild pagan graces and savage grandeur of external nature" (J. L. Robinson), substituted for the "reigning fopperies of a tasteless age' (Thomson's preface): the form is blank verse, which had fallen upon evil days in the sixty years since Milton's death. Thomson has been with good right called the "forerunner " of the movement in poetry called "romantic," which superseded the school of Pope at the close of the century.1

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Life in Scotland. Thomson was born at Ednam, a village in the southeastern part of Scotland, the region made

1 It seems best to defer definition of the "romantic" movement. Those, however, who wish to take it up at this point will find the subject treated on pages 219-223.

[ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »