Alexander Pope e le sue opere (Il Ricciolo Rapito)

The classical and modern anti-hero

1) ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)

LIFE ✓ →

He was a Catholic for this reason he could not atted university, vote or hold public office

✓ He was the first English writer to build a lucrative, lifelong career by publishing his works.

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Ill health plagued him almost from birth deformity. But he didn’t allow his infirmities to hold him back.

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He was encouraged by his father and he began to write verses he was already an accomplished poet in his

teens.

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He was an important translator of Classics translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

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His early poetry brought him to the attention of literary men he enters among the leading wits of the

town.

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“The life of a wit is a warfare on earth” his very success as a poet made enemies who were to plague him

in pamphlet throughout his entire literary career. He was attacked for his writings, his religion and his

physical deformity. Despite this, he was a fighter, always giving better than he got.

HIS WORKS

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PASTORAL natural/countrylife poet. Nature is presented as a classical picture. Descriptive passages of

ideally ordered nature. Ex “The Pastorals”,”Windsor Forest”.

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DIDACTIC KIND OF POETRY to teach values to the readers. His models were Horace and Boileu. Ex “An

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Essay on Criticism” he teaches the reader to be a good critic.

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URBAN, SATIRE, BURLESQUE Parodic representations. He is jovial but at times he’s a bit more arsh. For ex

“The Rape of The Lock”, which proved the author a master not only in metrics but also of witty, urban satire.

He had written the most brilliant mock epic in the language. Another ex is “The Dunciad” (lo stupido), in

which he stigmatized his literary enemies as agents of all that he disliked and feared in the tendencies of his

time (the vulgarization of taste and the arts consequent on the rapid growth of the reading public and the

development of journalism, magazines and other popular and cheap pubblications, which spread scandal,

sensationalism), in short in the new commercial spirit of the nation that was corrupting not only the arts but

also the national life.

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PHILOSOPHICAL He moved on to philosophical, ethical and political subjects in “An Essay on Man”. The

reign of George I and II appeared to him a period of rapid moral, political and cultural deterioration. He saw

corruption in all the aspects of national life by a vulgar class of Nouveaux Riches. Pope assumes the role of

the champion of traditional values: of right reason, humanistic learning, good art, good taste and public

virtue.

POETIC VOICE AND STYLE

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o THE SPEAKING I Pope created the I of the satires, and hides himself behind it. It is a voice which critics the

contemporary world: it is the detached observer removed from all the centres of corruption (the court, the

town..), he is friend of the virtuous, he is fond of peace, countrylife, morality, art, integrity, harmony. It is a

FICTIONAL FIGURE, something we find also in Byron (“Dramatis Persona” behind which he hides himself).

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o POETIC FORM his verse is notable for his RHYTHMIC VARIETY, despite the rigid metrical unit (canons of

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neoclassicism heroic couplet) => impression of regularity and balance.

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o STYLE ADAPTED TO THE GENRE different kinds of literature have their different and appropriate style

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(specific style + specific language). Ex “The Rape” heroic language, full of Latinate expressions.

“ THE RAPE OF THE LOCK”

- 1712 original shorter version + 1714 more elaborated version