In Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man" there is a large emphasis that the poem was written on the ability to comprehend and reason during the Enlightenment. People who lived in this period had a significant way of comprehending and reasoning on a variety of topics. Some people started to feel and understand the idea of there being a God, which caused many to speculate against the church. On a less theological and more scientific standpoint people also began to wonder of the universe, and with that had a fascination for man's place in this world. In Pope's "An Essay on Man" it's considered by many an expression of this Enlightenment because it shows three major thought processes of the population during the Enlightenment. Pope is stating a man's able and willingness to expand and think for oneself, leaving Pope to wonder and ponder the roots of Christianity. While Pope also touches on about what is man's place in the world as well in the great chain of life.
First off, we only comprehend of our preconception about God and man. For a man, we can observe only his place here on earth, and that has no comparison for God's infinite knowledge. God understands everything that we could ever dream of in the world we have a limited amount of knowledge. God, who observes everything, who is able to create a new world at the snap of a finger, who has the infinite know of astronomy, who created other suns with its orbiting planets, who created all the people on that planet and knows the delicate system, God know our place in the universe. We still don't come to think of all the creations and inner workings of this universe and how it is all connected with God. .
The Great Chain of Being is an idea man created yet an idea that God placed in our minds. In the first stanza Pope shows, while we believe we have everything figured out, God is the one giving us the knowledge to understand and only he knows all.
In "An Essay On Man" Alexander Pope seeks to justify God to man by discussing man's pride, the existence of evil, and submission. ... Pope denies that anything in it of itself is evil. ... Therefore what God allows in man (their sinful nature) is right. Pope encourages man to submit to God's greater wisdom and understanding. ... Pope's own philosophy based on Christian values is expressed in detail in "An Essay on Man." ...
In An Essay on Man Alexander Pope explains that humans are positioned in the correct order and should never question God judgment. ... Alexander Pope also relates the relation ship between humans to God as to weeds are to oak trees. ... Alexander Pope implies that God is correct to allow an imperfection in man, and that God's wisdom proclaim is always right. ... Alexander Pope argues that this idea is selfish and ridiculous. ... Alexander Pope argues, whenever man passes judgment on God's creation it rises him to a level of authority higher than that of God Himself. ...
The attitudes portrayed in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man and Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" towards mankind is strikingly similar. ... Pope primarily focuses on man's pride and place in society, whereas Swift discusses how man deals with certain situations reasonably or unreasonably. Pope and Swift present situations that man has to face in conjunction with illogical conclusions. ... Alexander Pope addresses in "An Essay On Man" the issue of the pride and man and man's emphasis on knowledge. ... From the religious stand point, the reader can assume that Pope ...
The two most important elements in Alexander Pope's life were his being born a Catholic and his contracting, during his twelfth year, a severe tubercular infection from which he never fully recovered. Because of his Catholicism, Pope was compelled to live outside of London and was not allowed to enroll in a formal university program. ... Pope's physical ailments and the acrimony with which political and literary pundits attacked both his person and his work should never be forgotten in evaluating, say, the optimistic faith of An Essay on Man or the acidulous satire of The Dunciad. ...
John Dryden and Alexander Pope are those poets most remembered from this age and their poems are prime examples of what distinguishes this period. ... It was Alexander Pope who perfected the heroic couplets and with whom the classical spirit of the Restoration reached its climax. ... The Age of Pope It was Alexander Pope who perfected the heroic couplets which Dryden preferred. ... He showed his greatest talent in verse satire also influencing the great satirist of the next century: Alexander Pope. ... But his focus was on man, nature and beauty. ...
Francis Bacon is the top man on the alternate man list. ... Ö Alexander Pope was a friend with Swift; one can see this easily with the similar ideals between the two men. Both Swift and Pope have written on the subject of the ways of man, Swift writes Fiction, Pope writes poetry. An Essay on man is like a straight-up shot of Swift. ... Alexander Pope is the first English writer to aadmitÖ that there are other beliefs and his work should not be tailored to the newest of the mainstream religions. ...
So Alexander Pope and Edward Gibbon created poetry and historical work that gave the people what they wanted. ... A man named Scotsman Robert Adam proved to be a favorite in architecture. ... The two writers that gave the people the Neoclassical style they wanted were Alexander Pope and Edward Gibbon. Pope wrote poems that celebrated the order and decorum of the middle class. ... If it weren't for great achievers such as Alexander Pope, Jacques-Louis David, and Scotsman Robert Adam, Neoclassicism may not have become such an impact. ...
