Alexander Pope (Oxford Authors S.)

by Alexander Pope (Author), Alexander Pope (Author), Pat Rogers (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $3.27

  Alexander Pope has often been termed the first truly professional poet in English. He had an acute awareness of traditions he had inherited and a clear vision of where he stood in literary history. In this representative selection of Pope's most important work Pat Rogers presents all the major poems and a characteristic sample of his prose, including satires, pamphlets, and periodical writing. Pope's criticism is represented by his preface to his edition of Shakespeare, and the personal side of his work is illustrated by short pasages from his conversations with Joseph Spence and examples of his wide-ranging correspondence. Peri Bathous is presented here in full, as well as the 1743 version of the Dunciad . Some translations are also included. A feature of this volume is that the texts are presented in chronological order so that the Moral Essays and the Imitations of Horace are restored to their original position in Pope's career.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.27

  Though opinion on Alexander Pope has frequently been divided, he is now regarded as the most important poet of the early 18th century. An invalid from infancy, he devoted his energies towards literature and achieved remarkable success with his first published work at the age of 21. A succession of brillant poems followed, including An Essay on Criticism (1711), Windsor Forest (1715), and his masterpiece, The Rape of the Lock . A second period of great poetry was begun in 1728 with the appearance of the first Dunciad . All these works, which exhibit Pope's human insight, his wide sympathies, and powers of social observation (displayed to greatest effect in his talent for satire), are to be found in this selection of poetry. In his introduction, which amounts to an eloquent defence of Pope's poetic practice, Pat Rodgers argues that the romantic conception of poetry as a record of fleeting and subjective states must be abandoned if readers are to understand Pope fully. Instead, he must be seen as an accomplished practitioner of the poetry of ideas and of satirical reflection on human society. Rogers also edited The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature and An Outline of English Literature .