Thursday, November 6, 2008
Pope's Essay on Man
Without even reading one can assume that Pope's writing is about mankind. The first time I read this all i could think about was how condescending it was. Every line seemed to call mankind fools or display how naive we must be. I felt like Pope was dropping science-like terms as a means of giving him the right to write this way. Later, in class, we discussed the difference between Pope "vindicating" God's actions to man, and Milton "justifying" God's action to man. To me, this means that Pop believes we have a reactive God. This further explains why Pope is sort of teaching his readers how to live virtuously, as well as the importance of it; where as Milton was kinda of giving us a story and saying take what you can from it. Perhaps Pope was more "advice column" driven because he was the first to rely on his writing for pay.
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2 comments:
I agree with how you view Pope as having a condescending attitude at times. It seems really odd to me, almost as if he's saying that he's an exception to the rule and is above the rest of us!
Actually, Pope was leading in optimistic philosophy of the time. Especially compared to the general view of the time - that man should be "doom and gloom" because we are no longer in Eden, Pope's work is remarkably hopeful and uplifting. If he sounds "condescending", well, he was definitely considered one of the best thinkers of his time, and he is presenting his ideas to a less knowledgeable audience. I think that gives him some right to be condescending.
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