... Pope's mock epic is seen through a parody of the structure and language of the classical narratives that had served since the Middle Ages as the models for literature at its grandest. As Russo, John P., author of Alexander Pope: Tradition and Identity (1972), points out Pope begins with an epic statement that echoes the first line of The Aeneid of Virgil: Arma virorumque cano, "Of arms and ... the man I sing O Heavenly Muse!" "What dire offense from am'rous causes springs,/ What mighty contests rise from trivial things,/ I sing."( He establishes immediately ... the fact that the battlef...

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