All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
–Alexander Pope, from Essay on Man, IV.281-294

Alexander Pope, a poet and catholic, betrays his neoclassicist longing for a universe that is perfectly ordered, ineffable, and beyond human understanding. His final pronouncement in Essay on Man, insists that man’s reason is no match for God’s design: that while we, perhaps arrogantly, strive for a rational understanding of the universe, are minds are not a match for God’s. We must console ourselves that the universe was designed in the best possible way, by the best of artists, and even though events will often leave us face-down in the mud or staring impotently at heaven, we must realize that it could be no other way. We live in the best of possible worlds.

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Allusion in Neoclassical poetry has various functions: allusion provides a contrast between the virtues of the past and the insanity of the present; allusion enriches the meaning and the texture of the poem; and allusion suggests a universality: people are not as different as they might believe being separated by time and space.

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Many students find Pope’s Rape of the Lock challenging. This study guide hopes to make it more accessible.

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The heroic, sometimes known as the closed, couplet dates back to Chaucer, who uses it in the Canterbury Tales (of course it is not the same couplet; its secondary characteristics differ, and it lacks the conciseness of Pope’s couplets). The heroic couplet achieved widespread usage, however, only after the Restoration, where one finds it both in poetry and drama. In fact, its adoption in the “heroic drama” of the 1660s and 1670s gave the closed couplet its better known name: the heroic couplet. The couplet held favor through the life of Pope, who employs it almost exclusively and in whose hands it reaches its highest perfection; thereafter, it declines in popularity. Except for Byron, the Romantics scorned the couplet, as they did other aspects of neoclassicism.

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“Whatever is, is right” (Man I.294). This statement appears to contradict Pope’s raison d’être as a satirist and critic. How can the writer of this statement critique human faults? If God is omniscient, and God made the world, then the world is perfect and humans were made as well as God wanted them made — no improvement is necessary or realizable. There must be more to Pope’s syllogism that would warrant a less confusing and more profound interpretation of this ostensibly inexplicable statement. With this conclusion in his Essay on Man, Pope’s Essay on Criticism seemingly becomes moot. I am interested here in how Whatever is, is right relates to criticism and writing. Rather than negating criticism altogether, Whatever is, is right only supports the critic’s endeavor further.

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The satirist in the works of Alexander Pope, specifically in his formal verse satires “To Fortesque,” “Dialogue II,” and “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,” takes on several significant roles with concomitant responsibilities. While other, less serious reasons are stated early on in these poems (e.g. writing to be able to sleep, writing is his “thing,” writing exposes his true soul, he was born to write and encouraged to publish, and writing to defend himself) they progress from less serious to the true raison d’être of the satirist as the defender of Virtue and the friends of Virtue: “not for Fame, but Virtue’s better end” (A 342). The defense of Virtue is paramount to the satirist, above all other considerations, even death: “Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past: / For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev’n the last” (A 358-9).

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