Alexander Pope - An Essay on Man - Epistle 1 (Introduction)

 

Alexander Pope - An Essay on Man

Epistle 1 (Introduction)

 

In the opening Epistle I of An Essay on Man, Pope catches the manners of men. He reveals the world where Man is caught in endless conflicts. Man is only a part of whole and therefore can see only a part and not the whole. Pope feels that man is a Being best suited to the position in creation in the general Order of things. It is only in his Pride lies the error. The poet tries to understand the ways of the Creator as well. He feels that Almighty acts only by general laws. The theory of Leibniz finds its echo in the first epistle in the lines:

Vast chain of Being, which from God began,

Natures aethereal, human, angel, man,

Beast, bird, fish, insect! …

From Nature’s chain whatever link you stride,

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

(Epistle I, St. VIII, 5-14)

In the first few lines, Pope says and feels that man has no choice: man comes to life, looks out and then dies. The scene of man is a mighty maze! But Man might sort through the maze because he has a marvelous mental faculty, that of reason; man can determine the nature of the world in which he lives.

He, who thro’ vast immensity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compose one universe,

Observe how system into system runs,

What other planets circle other suns,

(Epistle I, St. I, 7-10)

...

Look’d thro’? or can a part contain the whole?

Is the great chain that draws all to agree,

And, drawn, supports - upheld by God or thee?

(Epistle I, St. I, 16-18)

In his next stanza, Pope says, that man cannot immediately figure out all of the mysteries with which he is presented. There are many things which are beyond our comprehension:

As of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made

Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade.

(Epistle I, St. II, 5-6)

...

And all that rises, rise in due degree;

Then, in the sale of reas’ning life, ’tis plain

There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man.

(Epistle I, St. II, 12-14)

...

When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,

Is now a victim, and now Egypt’s god,

(Epistle I, St. II, 29-30)

The fact is, man cannot expect to understand everything in this world as to why oaks are stronger than weeds or ox is sometimes a victim and sometimes worshipped as a God.

...Then say not Man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault, -

Say rather Man’s as perfect as he ought:

His knowledge measur’d to his state and place,

His time a moment, and a point his space.

(Epistle I, St. II, 35-38)

In the third stanza, Pope says, Heav’n, from all creatures, hides the book of fate and continues to express his admiration of different aspects of Nature. As far as God is considered he sees everything with an equal eye.

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

Pleas’d to the last he crops the flow’ry food,

And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.

(Epistle I, St. III, 5-8)

...

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

(Epistle I, St. III, 11-14)

The religiosity in Pope is revealed when he refers to the “great teacher Death” and Pope’s most famous lines are when he relies on Hope to sustain him through thick and thin.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blest:

The soul uneasy and confin’d from home,

Rest and expatiates in a life to come.

(Epistle I, St.III, 19-22)

Next, Pope deals with native people of the uncivilized territories of the world.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

His soul proud Science never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk or milky way;

Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv’n,

Behind the cloud-topp’d hill, a humbler heav’n;

Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,

Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!

To be, contents his natural desire;

He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire:

But things, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

(Epistle I, St. III, 23 -36)

Pope has pointed out that even though man is part of a larger setting, a part of nature and depends on nature for his very substance, and yet, treats her roughly.

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,

Yet cry, if Man’s unhappy, God’s unjust;

(Epistle I, St. IV, 5-6)

...

Ask for what end the heav’nly bodies shine,

Earth for whose use, Pride answers, “’Tis for mine!

“For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow’r,

“Suckles each herb and spreads out ev’ry flow’r;

(Epistle I, St. V, 1-4)

Pope asserts that man is ruled by his reason and by his passion.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,

Were there are harmony, all virtue here;

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never passion discompos’d the mind.

But all subsists by elemental strife;

And passions are the elements of life.

The gen’ral Order since the whole began

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

(Epistle I, St. V, 35-42)

Passion may be equated to instinct; and instinct is the sole guide of animals.

It is only man who is not pleased with God’s blessings.

Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force:

All in exact proportion to the state;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:

Is Heav’n unkind to Man, and Man alone?

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas’d with nothing, if not bless’d with all?

(Epistle I, St. VI, 10-16)

Pope emphasizes how nature has perfected itself and many of its creations and there is a variety.

The spider’s tough how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:

In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true

From pois’nous herbs extracts the healing dew?

(Epistle I, St. VII, 11-14)

In the last lines of Pope’s first epistle, he says, that all of nature, including ourselves, are but “parts of one stupendous whole.” Pope concludes his first epistle:

Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow’r,

Or in the natal, or the moral hour.

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see

All discord, harmony not understood,

All partial evil, universal good:

And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,

One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

(Epistle I, St. X, 7-14)

In the whole of this visible world, a universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed. And in this Order, all the creatures appear subordinate to man. And when probed into the inner life of man, there is yet another gradation and there the order begins from the sense, and moves on to instinct, thought, reflection and reason; Reason emerges supreme.

The first epistle of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man can be considered an articulation of the Enlightenment. Pope addresses man’s ability to reason, reason being the central focus of the Enlightenment. He also questions the church, and examines the structure of the Universe.