http://www.luminarium.org/ http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/englit_1/18th_century.htmhttp://kids.britannica.com/comptons/article-200344/English-literaturehttp://literarism.blogspot.ro/2011/04/seventeenth-century-verse-satire.htmlhttp://britlitwiki.wikispaces.com/The+Restoration+and+the+18th+Centuryhttp://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Satirehttp://www.gradesaver.com/john-dryden-poems/wikipedia/reputation-and-influence/http://academic.mu.edu/engl/karians/sp11satire.htm#JohnDryden

Alexander POPE (1688-1744)

Pope wrote during what is often called the Augustan Age of English literature (indeed, it is Pope's career that defines the age). During this time, the nation had recovered from the English Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, and the regained sense of political stability led to a resurgence of support for the arts. For this reason, many compared the period to the reign of Augustus in Rome, under whom both Virgil and Horace had found support for their work. The prevailing taste of the day was neoclassical, and 18th-century English writers tended to value poetry that was learned and allusive, setting less value on originality than the Romantics would in the next century. This literature also tended to be morally and often politically engaged, privileging satire as its dominant mode.The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of mock-epic. The epic had long been considered one of the most serious of literary forms; it had been applied, in the classical period, to the lofty subject matter of love and war, and, more recently, by Milton, to the intricacies of the Christian faith. The strategy of Pope's mock-epic is not

to mock the form itself, but to mock his society in its very failure to rise to epic standards, exposing its pettiness by casting it against the grandeur of the traditional epic subjects and the bravery and fortitude of epic heroes: Pope's mock-heroic treatment in The Rape of the Lock underscores the ridiculousness of a society in which values have lost all proportion, and the trivial is handled with the gravity and solemnity that ought to be accorded to truly important issues. The society on display in this poem is one that fails to distinguish between things that matter and things that do not. The poem mocks the men it portrays by showing them as unworthy of a form that suited a more heroic culture. Thus the mock-epic resembles the epic in that its central concerns are serious and often moral, but the fact that the approach must now be satirical rather than earnest is symptomatic of how far the culture has fallen.Pope's use of the mock-epic genre is intricate and exhaustive. The Rape of the Lock is a poem in which every element of the contemporary scene conjures up some image from epic tradition or the classical world view, and the pieces are wrought together with a cleverness and expertise that makes the poem surprising and delightful. Pope's transformations are numerous, striking, and loaded with moral implications. The great battles of epic become bouts of gambling and flirtatious tiffs. The great, if capricious, Greek and Roman gods are converted into a relatively undifferentiated army of basically ineffectual sprites. Cosmetics, clothing, and jewelry substitute for armor and weapons, and the rituals of religious sacrifice are transplanted to the dressing room and the altar of love.

SWIFT: Some narrative featuresThe novel is a fantasy and a realistic work of fiction. The language, as is typical of all Swift’s works, is very simple, unadorned, straightforward and effective. It is noted for its exceptionally tidy structural arrangement. The four seemingly independent parts are linked up by the central idea of social satire and make up an organic whole. Some commentsWhile social exposure and satire of the book is generally acknowledged, there have been great controversies over its deeper intention, especially with Part Four, What sort of thing is man? This is certainly the central question to the book. Some people are shocked by its open blunt “negativeness” towards human beings, others feel satisfied with its religious implication that, man in his development from primitive forms of life, has achieved only a very limited rationality and morality.

Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744, English poet. Although his literary reputation declined somewhat during the 19th cent., he is now recognized as the greatest poet of the 18th cent. and the greatest verse satirist in English.

In the last period of his career Pope turned to writing satires and moral poems. These include The Dunciad (1728-43), a scathing satire on dunces and literary hacks in which Pope viciously attacked his enemies, including Lewis Theobald, the critic who had ridiculed Pope's edition of Shakespeare, and the playwright Colley Cibber; Imitations of Horace (1733-38), satirizing social follies and political corruption; An Essay on Man (1734), a poetic summary of current philosophical speculation, his most ambitious work; Moral Essays (1731-35); and the "Epistle to Arbuthnot" (1735), a defense in poetry of his life and his work.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/alexander-pope#ixzz2CginJ3RB

BibliographySee the Twickenham edition of his poems (7 vol., 1951-61); his prose works ed. by N. Ault (1936, repr. 1968); his letters ed. by G. Sherburn (5 vol., 1956); biographies by G. Sherburn (1934, repr. 1963), N. Ault (1949, repr. 1967), P. Quennell (1968), and M. Maynard (1988); studies by G. Tillotson (1946; 2d ed. 1950; and 1958), F. W. Bateson and N. A. Joukovsky, ed. (1972), J. P. Russo (1972), P. Dixon, ed. (1973), F. M. Keener (1974), D. B. Morris (1984), L. Damrosch, Jr. (1987), and R. A. Brower (1986).

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/alexander-pope#ixzz2CgiPKpWS