essay on man summary alexander pope

Alexander Pope published An Essay on Man in 1734. An Essay on Man is a poem published by Alexander Pope in 1733-1734.[1][2][3] Is an effort to rationalize or rather vindicate the ways of God to man (l.16), a variation of John Milton's claim in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, that he will justify the ways of God to men (1.26). It is concerned with the natural order God has decreed for man. Because man cannot know God's purposes, he cannot complain about his position in the Great Chain of Being (ll.33-34) and must accept that Whatever IS, is RIGHT (l.292), a theme that was satirized by Voltaire in Candide (1759).[4] More than any other work, it popularized optimistic philosophy throughout England and the rest of Europe. Pope's Essay on Man and Moral Epistles were designed to be the parts of a system of ethics which he wanted to express in poetry. Moral Epistles has been known under various other names including Ethic Epistles and Moral Essays. On its publication, An Essay on Man received great admiration throughout Europe. Voltaire called it the most beautiful, the most useful, the most sublime didactic poem ever written in any language.[5] In 1756 Rousseau wrote to Voltaire admiring the poem and saying that it softens my ills and brings me patience. Kant was fond of the poem and would recite long passages from it to his students.[6] Later however, Voltaire renounced his admiration for Pope's and Leibniz's optimism and even wrote a novel, Candide, as a satire on their philosophy of ethics. Rousseau also critiqued the work, questioning Pope's uncritical assumption that there must be an unbroken chain of being all the way from inanimate matter up to God. [7] The essay, written in heroic couplets, comprises four epistles. Pope began work on it in 1729, and had finished the first three by 1731. They appeared in early 1733, with the fourth epistle published the.
The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written, characteristically, in heroic couplets, and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended it as the centerpiece of a proposed system of ethics to be put forth in poetic form: it is in fact a fragment of a larger work which Pope planned but did not live to complete. It is an attempt to justify, as Milton had attempted to vindicate, the ways of God to Man, and a warning that man himself is not, as, in his pride, he seems to believe, the center of all things. Though not explicitly Christian, the Essay makes the implicit assumption that man is fallen and unregenerate, and that he must seek his own salvation. The Essay consists of four epistles, addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, and derived, to some extent, from some of Bolingbroke's own fragmentary philosophical writings, as well as from ideas expressed by the deistic third Earl of Shaftsbury. Pope sets out to demonstrate that no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable, and disturbingly full of evil the Universe may appear to be, it does function in a rational fashion, according to natural laws; and is, in fact, considered as a whole, a perfect work of God. It appears imperfect to us only because our perceptions are limited by our feeble moral and intellectual capacity. His conclusion is that we must learn to accept our position in the Great Chain of Being — a middle state, below that of the angels but above that of the beasts — in which we can, at least potentially, lead happy and virtuous lives. Epistle I concerns itself with the nature of man and with his place in the universe; Epistle II, with man as an individual; Epistle III, with man in relation to human society, to the political and social hierarchies; and Epistle IV, with man's pursuit of happiness in this world. An Essay on Man was a controversial work in Pope's day, praised by some and criticized by others.
ESSAY ON MAN By Alexander Pope (1688-1744). [Analysis - NO or YES.] Pope wrote his Essay on Man in rhyming verse. Certainly today, we think anybody that writes poetry is one who is a bit odd, to say the least. Back in the eighteenth century, it was not so strange. Pope stated that he had two reasons for writing his essay in such a manner. First, he thought that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards. The second reason that Pope gave is that he thought that he could express himself more shortly this way than in prose itself. My copy of Pope's Essay on Man runs approximately 30 pages, 30 pages of a smaller poetry book. It is broken down into four epistles.1 I here make comments about the expressions and thoughts of Pope in his essay. I have quoted at length from his essay. Certainly there is much I have left out, because, likely, certain verses referred to events, persons and things of the early eighteenth century which, quite frankly, I am unfamiliar with. Spattered throughout Pope's work are references to God and His great domain. Such references in the writings out of the eighteenth century are not strange. The livelihood of writers, by and large -- as was with the case of all artists back then -- depended almost entirely on the generosity of church and state, so it was necessary in those days that writers give due regard to religious authority. Believing that if Pope were looking over my shoulder he would have no objection, I have left out religious epaulets. EPISTLE I Within the first few lines, we see Pope wondering about the fruitlessness of life. We have no choice: we come to it, look out and then die. What we see as we look out on the scene of man is a mighty maze! But Pope does not think this complex of existence is without a plan. Man might sort through the.