Alexander Pope

An Essay on Man (Annotated) Alexander Pope

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. It is a poem published by Alexander Pope in 1733-1734. It was dedicated to Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (pronounced 'Bull-en-brook') hence the opening line: "Wake up, Saint John ...". It is an effort to rationalize or rather "reclaim 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 has to do with the natural order that God has decreed for man. Since man cannot know the purposes of God, 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 satirized by Voltaire in Candide (1759). More than any other work, he popularized the optimistic philosophy in England and the rest of Europe. The Pope's Essay on Man and the Moral Epistles were designed to be part of a system of ethics that he wanted to express in poetry. Moral epistles are known by other names, such as ethical epistles and moral essays. In his publication, An Essay on Man received great admiration across Europe. Voltaire called it "the most beautiful, most useful, most sublime teaching poem ever written in any language."