An Essay on Man From Alexander Pope
怨歌行班婕妤INTRODUCTION
离婚起诉书
The philosophical poem An Essay on Man consists of four ver epistles, each of which was published parately and anonymously between February 1733 and January 1734 by a bookller not previously associated with Pope's writings. Attesting to his belief that “the life of a Wit is a warfare upon earth,” Pope contrived the elaborate ru partly to defu the hostility provoked by his recent satires, notably The Dunciad (1728) and his Epistle to Burlington (1731), and partly to cure an impartial audience for the poem. Pope eventually identified himlf as the author when he collected the epistles under the subtitle “Being the First Book of Ethic Epistles.” He had originally conceived of An Essay on Man as the introduction to an opus magnum on society and morality, but he later abandoned the plan. To this end, the poem address the question of human nature and the potential for happiness in relation to the univer, social and political hierarchies, and the individual. Articulating the values of eighteenth-century optimism, the poem employs a majestic decla
matory style and underscores its arguments with a range of conventional rhetorical techniques. An Essay on Man met with international acclaim upon publication and generated no small share of controversy in ensuing decades. During the succeeding centuries, however, critics have perceived Pope's poem as fundamentally flawed, both aesthetically and philosophically. Nearly three hundred years after its publication, the poem generally merits distinction as, in David B. Morris's phra, “a forlorn classic of ratiocination.”
Plot and Major Characters
一个家庭的一天Pope addresd An Essay on Man to Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, who rved briefly as cretary of state and prime minister under Queen Anne. Previously acquainted with Pope by mutual association with Jonathan Swift, Bolingbroke retired in 1723 to Dawley, a farm neighboring Pope's Twickenham, and quickly befriended the poet, who personal beliefs neatly coincided with his own. The friends often discusd much of the subject matter expresd in both Pope's poem and Bolingbroke's own amateur philosophi
cal writings, usually as they walked the grounds of their properties. Divided into four parts, An Essay on Man explicates ideas commonplace among eighteenth-century European intellectuals concerning human nature and humanity's role in the univer. Proposing to “vindicate the ways of God to man,” the first epistle attempts to show the underlying harmony and virtue of the univer and the propriety of humanity's place in it, despite the prence of evil and apparent imperfection in the world. Each of the remaining epistles draws upon this premi, describing potential improvements to some aspect of human nature and society with the implicit understanding that the univer is divinely ordered and esntially perfect. The cond epistle discuss humans as unique beings and shows how the psychological balance between lf-interest and the “passions,” or emotions, under the guidance of reason, promotes virtuous living. The third epistle address the role of the individual in society, tracing the origins of such civilizing institutions as government and the class system to a constant interaction between the lfish motivations and altruistic impuls of individual humans. The fourth epistle frames the struggle between lf-love and love of others in terms of the pursuit of happiness, arg
清蒸大虾
uing that any human can attain true happiness through virtuous living, which happens only when lfish instincts yield to genuine expressions of benevolence toward others and God.
Major Themes
Throughout the epistles of An Essay on Man Pope surveys such grand themes as the existence of a Supreme Being and the behavior of humans, the workings of the univer and the role of humans in it, and the capacity of government to establish and promote the happiness of its citizens. Conquently, the poem is one of Pope's most thorough statements of his philosophical, ethical, and political principles, which, however, were generally neither unique, radical, nor systematic. A practicing Catholic and instinctually conrvative in his politics—each position precarious to acknowledge in Pope's time—Pope carefully avoids explicit references to specific church doctrines and political issues in the poem. Implicitly assuming such Christian notions as fallen man, lost paradi, and a beneficent deity, the poem prents an eclectic assortment of both traditional and curre
nt philosophical ideas that attempt to explain the universal characteristics of humankind. The poem borrows ideas from a range of medieval and renaissance thinkers, although Pope somewhat modifies them to suit his artistic purpos. The underlying theme of the poem is the idea that there exists an ordered univer which posss a coherent structure and functions in a rational fashion, according to natural laws designed by God. The description of its structure derives from the metaphysical doctrine of the Great Chain of Being, which explains the fullness and unity of the natural world in terms of a hierarchy that ranges from plants and incts at one end to humans and angels at the other. As a creation of God, the univer ultimately is a perfect design that appears imperfect to humans becau the ability to perceive its order correctly is diminished by pride and intellectual limitations. If humanity were to acknowledge with humility its insignificant position in the greater context of creation, Pope reasons, then humanity's capacity to live happily and virtuously on earth would be possible. Pope express many of his main ideas regarding human nature in language so indelible and pithy that some phras from the poem have become commonplace in the English language.
正切余切
Critical Reception
榴莲冰皮月饼Upon publication, An Essay on Man made Pope the toast of literati everywhere, including his inveterate foes in London, whom he deceived into celebrating the poem, since he had published it anonymously. His avowed enemy Leonard Welsted, for instance, declared the poem “above all commendation.” This asssment typified the initial critical and popular respon in England, which was generally echoed throughout Europe over the next two decades. Such notable figures as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousau, and Immanuel Kant rhapsodized about the poem's literary aesthetics and philosophical insights. However, the early universal appeal of An Essay on Man soon gave way to controversy inspired by a small but vocal community of metaphysicians and clergymen, who perceived challenges and threats in the poem's themes to their respective authority. The critics determined that its values, despite its themes, were esntially poetic and not coherently philosophical by any means. Within fifty years of its publication, the prevailing critical opinion of the poem mirrored that of Samuel Johnson, who noted, “Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of ntiment so happily disguid.” This c
芒果吃多
onnsus persisted throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, as commentators also trivialized the work's poetic achievements—as they generally did Pope's other writings. Widely neglected and relegated to the dustbin of literary history, An Essay on Man has been often perceived as an historical curiosity disconnected from contemporary concerns, literary and otherwi. However, a number of recent critics have sought to rehabilitate the poem's status in the canon by focusing on its language and ideas in terms of the genre of philosophical poetry. Other commentators have attempted to reevaluate the poem's ideas within the context of early eighteenth-century thought in an effort to demonstrate that Pope derived his theodicy—or explanation of the ways of God—from the various philosophical and theological positions held by his intellectual peers.
藏头诗表白
