... 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 battlefields ... but also the rest of humanity, including Pope himself and certainly his readers are somehow ridiculous and funny -- and tragic -- too. Thus, Pope has successfully taken the audience from epic poetr...

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• Approx Pages: 6