An Essay on Man is really a series of four verse epistles by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) addressed towards politician and man of letters Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke (1678-1751).
It was intended to write Book I of the comprehensive series of
essays on man, to become named Ethic Epistles, which was also to include Pope's Epistles to Quite a few Persons on the characters of men and of women and on the use of riches. This plan was in no way finally settled or put into effect, but an Essay on Man stands as his most ambitious attempt at setting out his philosophical beliefs, or his "general Map of Man."
Pope began an Essay on Man in 1729. By 1731 he had completed Epistles I-III and had begun Epistle IV. He may perhaps then have set the jobs aside for your period, prior to publishing Epistles I-III in 1734 and Epistle IV in 1734. Pope had made enemies during the vigorous and often scurrilous literary politics of his time; hence to be able to gain an Essay on Man an unprejudiced reception, its very first publication was anonymous. It was reprinted with minor revisions in the nine authorized editions of Pope's works published in his lifetime as well as appearing in pirated editions.
Each from the four Epistles is in effect a separate Essay on Man, discussing man's location within the universe (I), psychology (II), society (III), and the sources of happiness (IV). These discussions touch on major controversies or developments in 18thcentury thought. Epistle I employs the arguments of natural religion, the attempt to show that the existence of God as well as other orthodox religious doctrines could be inferred by reason. In confining himself to these arguments, Pope excludes biblical revelation. This need not mean that he rejected the authority on the Bible, though this conclusion has been drawn by some readers inside the time an Essay on Man was very first published. It may well mean rather that Pope wrote for an audience not responsive to conventional religious discourse and that he wished to demonstrate to this audience the compatibility in between reason and at least some aspects of Christian orthodoxy. Epistle II expounds the doctrine that every person is governed by a certain "ruling passion," which reason cannot overcome but may possibly guide. Throughout the poem Pope gives surprising prominence and importance for the passions and to instinct, arguing in Epistle III that human reason is a smaller amount dependable than animal instinct. In its regular allusions to the discoveries of Isaac Newton, an Essay on Man reveals skepticism within the usefulness of the new empirical science. Against this science Pope asserts the humanist thought that "The correct learn of Mankind is Man," and that this find out is even more demanding than the physical sciences. The prevailing theme of an Essay on Man is really a characteristic 18th-century optimism that all aspects of creation, just like apparent evils, work together to create an inclusive good, which might on the other hand be beyond the grasp of human understanding.
An Essay on Man also incorporates conventional teachings of classical and Christian philosophers and moralists. It envisages Creation as a "great chain of being," a hierarchical gradation wherever every species has its allotted place. Its history of human society begins of the mythic "golden age," a region of nature wherever all creatures lived in peace. The discussion of happiness in Epistle IV teaches that real happiness consists not in accidents of fortune, like wealth or social rank, nor in military or political achievements, nor even in wisdom, but in virtue. This really is a teaching familiar in Roman moralists and poets for instance Seneca and Horace. An Essay on Man takes on its most sternly Christian coloration after it attacks human pride and emphasizes the limits of human knowledge and capacities.
This emphasis relates the poem for the questioning and tentative character of an Essay on Man as practiced by Montaigne . Pope's mistrust of systematic science also leads him to adopt the aim of Bacon 's essays, to treat not abstruse but everyday subjects, which "come house to men's corporation and bosoms." 1 model for Pope's style are the epistles of Horace, with their good-humored urbanity. On the other hand there's a tension between, on the 1 hand, Pope's protestations of modesty and his insistence on human ignorance, and, on the other, the ambitious scope of his poem and his air of unruffled confidence in his own knowledge and understanding.An "Essay on Man" exhibits Pope's characteristic uses of his verse form, the rhyming couplet. It abounds in parallelism and antithesis and in epigrams and aphorisms . Occasionally the needs of argumentation produce excessively elliptical language, but in general the poem has an easy, conversational quality. This is produced by Pope's use of question and answer and of direct address to an imagined interlocutor. Sometimes the interlocutor's understanding or opinion is presented only to be disproved or ridiculed; sometimes the interlocutor is imagined being the poem's addressee Bolingbroke and is treated respectfully. Vigor and also a sense of debate are injected by the poem's rhetorical questions, its exclamations of wonder or outrage, and its occasional ecstatic visions. An effect of comprehensiveness and variety, appropriate for the poem's large subject, is made by its lists and catalogues. These may perhaps detail the wonders of the universe or the kinds of human nature created under the direction of wisdom, or they might detail the follies of humanity in doubting or resisting that wisdom. Pope draws on historical examples, including Alexander the Excellent or Oliver Cromwell, whilst an "Essay on Man" normally lacks the vivid narrative episodes and character sketches that mark his Epistles to Many People . Pope's very own summary of his variety is "happily to steer/From grave to gay, from lively to severe;/Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,/Intent to reason, or polite to please."An "Essay on Man" was broadly admired within the 18th century. Besides its English editions, about 100 translations have been published. It's typically quoted by the philosopher Immanuel Kant and was imitated by Voltaire ( Discours en vers sur l'homme [ 1736; Discourse in verse on man]). However, simply because the 19th century the didacticism, rationalism, and optimism of an "Essay on Man" have caused it to fall from crucial favor.
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