The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems. Alexander Pope
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Название: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems

Автор: Alexander Pope

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 4064066120887

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СКАЧАТЬ were of general interest to the society in which he lived; he pictured life as he saw it about him. And this accounts for his prompt and general acceptance by the world of his day. For the student of English literature Pope's work has a threefold value. It represents the highest achievement of one of the great movements in the developments of English verse. It reflects with unerring accuracy the life and thought of his time—not merely the outward life of beau and belle in the days of Queen Anne, but the ideals of the age in art, philosophy, and politics. And finally it teaches as hardly any other body of English verse can be said to do, the perennial value of conscious and controlling art. Pope's work lives and will live while English poetry is read, not because of its inspiration, imagination, or depth of thought, but by its unity of design, vigor of expression, and perfection of finish—by those qualities, in short, which show the poet as an artist in verse.

       Contents

      Chief Dates In Pope's Life

1688 Born, May 21
1700 Moves to Binfield
1709 Pastorals
1711 Essay on Criticism
1711–12 Contributes to Spectator
1712 Rape of the Lock, first form
1713 Windsor Forest
1713 Issues proposals for translation of Homer
1714 Rape of the Lock, second form
1715 First volume of the Iliad
1715 Temple of Fame
1717 Pope's father dies
1717 Works, including some new poems
1719 Settles at Twickenham
1720 Sixth and last volume of the Iliad
1722 Begins translation of Odyssey
1725 Edits Shakespeare
1726 Finishes translation of Odyssey
1727–8 Miscellanies by Pope and Swift
1728–9 Dunciad
1731–2 Moral Essays: Of Taste, Of the Use of Riches
1733–4 Essay on Man
1733–8 Satires and Epistles
1735 Works
1735 Letters published by Curll
1741 Works in Prose; vol. II. includes the correspondence with Swift
1742 Fourth book of Dunciad
1742 Revised Dunciad
1744 Died, May 30
1751 First collected edition, published by Warburton, 9 vols.

       Contents

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos; Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. Mart, [Epigr, XII. 84.]

       To Mrs. Arabella Fermor

       Madam,

       It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to You. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex's little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the air of a Secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offer'd to a Bookseller, you had the good-nature for my sake to consent to the publication of one more correct: This I was forc'd to, before I had executed half my design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to compleat it.

       The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Critics, to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons are made to act in a Poem: For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many modern Ladies: let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.

       I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a Lady; but't is so much the concern of a Poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your Sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or three difficult terms.

       The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of them is in a French book call'd Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its title and size is so like a Novel, that many of the Fair Sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these Gentlemen, the four Elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes or Dæmons of Earth delight in mischief; but the Sylphs whose habitation is in the Air, are the best-condition'd creatures imaginable. For they say, any mortals may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true Adepts, an inviolate preservation of Chastity. As to the following Canto's, all the passages of them are as fabulous, as the Vision at the beginning, or the Transformation at the end; (except the loss of your Hair, which I always mention with reverence). The Human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character of Belinda, as it is now manag'd, resembles you in nothing but in Beauty. If this Poem had as many Graces as there are in your Person, or in your Mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro' the world half so Uncensur'd as You have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem, Madam, Your СКАЧАТЬ