Reading Pope S Imitations Of Horace

This study reclaims Pope's meaning in each successive imitation by focusing on the differences between Horace's Latin poems and Pope's English versions. It considers not only Pope's expression of concerns about his own world but also the contemporary reputation of the Roman Augustan Age and of Augustus and Horace.

The thrust of the book is to emphasize the radical nature of Pope's interpretation of Horace, an engagement both dynamic and changing.

A survey of Restoration poetry, from the forms in which it was disseminated to studies of important texts. This book explores the complex ways in which authors, publishers, and readers contributed to the making of Restoration poetry. The essays in Part I map some principal aspects of Restoration poetic culture: how poetic canons were established through both print and manuscript; how censorship operated within the manuscript transmission of erotic and politically sensitive poems; the poetic functions of authorial anonymity; the work of allusion and intertextualreference; the translation and adaptation of classical poetry; and the poetic representations of Charles II. Part II turns to individual poets, and charts the making of Dryden's canon; the ways in which Mac Flecknoe operates through intertextual allusions; the relationship of the variant texts of Marvell's "To his Coy Mistress"; and the treatment of Rochester's canon and text by his modern editors. The discussions are complemented by illustrationsdrawn from both printed books and manuscripts. PAUL HAMMOND is Professor of Seventeenth-Century Literature at the University of Leeds.

First published in 1968, The World of Pope’s Satires is a stimulating and challenging book showing how the satires written by Pope during the 1730s were not only expressions of his own .poetic personality but were also responsive to the habits and attitudes of the age. The author considers Pope’s uses of some current conversational technique (especially that of ‘raillery’) and of the closely related social ideal of the cultivated gentleman. Pope’s regard for certain personal attributes and moral values – notably hospitality, integrity, friendship, charity and self-knowledge – is examined in two ways; as it expresses itself positively in the satires, and as it is defined negatively by his antipathy towards courtly self-seeking and hypocrisy, contemporary manifestations of acquisitiveness, and the pride associated with neo-stoicism. The final chapter is wide ranging and shows that although Pope is at times representative, and therefore limited, in his response to the pressures and uncertainties of the age, his satires live because of the subtlety of his treatment of such Augustan commonplaces as Order and Balance and the passion and spirit of his writing. This will be an interesting read for students of English literature.