Customer Reviews

Poetry And Prose Of Alexander Pope (Riverside Editions)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This edition of Pope's work is very, very good. Included are all the major poems, a good selection of the minor poems, and some of Pope's best prose. Also, the edition is edited by Aubrey Williams, a Pope critic with genuine stature and ability, who knows Pope better than any of the editors of more recent editions. This book is an excellent selection for anyone looking for a one-volume edition of Pope.

This Riverside Edition of the -Poetry and Prose of
Alexander Pope- published by Houghton Mifflin is an
excellent collection. For it contains complete works
from his earliest efforts (Pastorals written at the age
of 16) through the final Four Book complete version
of "The Dunciad" which he published in October 1743.
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 -- 30 May 1744) is the
middle representative of a great Triumvirate of
British literature encompassing the Neo-Classical
or Augustan Age. This period saw, at its best, writers
emulating the classical values and styles which they
found in the ancient works of Greece and Rome. Also,
as a result of the excellent educational backgrounds
which they received, writers desired to bring forth
English translations of those ancient Greek and Roman
writers. Pope brought out an excellent English
translation of Homer's -Iliad-. The other two
authors of the Triumvirate are John Dryden (1631 - 1700)
before Pope, and Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) after Pope.
The works included in this well-priced volume are:
Pastorals (with a Discourse on Pastoral Poetry); The
Episode of Sarpedon (from The Iliad); Sapho to Phaon;
An Essay on Criticism (complete); Messiah; Epistle to
Miss Blount, With the Works of Voiture; Windsor-Forest;
The Rape of the Lock (complete); Epistle to Mr. Jervas;
Eloise to Abelard; Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate
Lady; To Mr. Addison; An Essay on Man (complete); Epistles
to Several Persons: Richard Temple, To a Lady, Allen
Lord Bathurst, Richard Boyle; An Epistle to Dr.
Arbuthnot; Satires and Epistles of Horace Imitated
(First Satire, Second Book; Second Satire, Second
Book; Second Satire, First Book; Second Epistle,
Second Book; First Epistle, Second Book; Sixth
Epistle, First Book; First Epistle, First Book);
The Satires of Dr. John Donne, Versified (Second
Satire; Fourth Satire); Epilogue to the Satires
(Dialogue I; Dialogue II); The Dunciad, in Four
Books (complete); A Letter to the Publisher;
Martinus Scriblerus of the Poem; Book First,
Book Second, Book Third, Book Fourth); essay
in -The Guardian-, No. 40; Peri Bathous, or
The Art of Sinking in Poetry; Preface to the
Iliad; and Preface to the Works of Shakespear.
Pope, born a Roman Catholic and suffering a
tubercular infection of the spine in adolescence
which stunted his growth and gave him a hump-backed
appearance, was an outsider to the mainstream of
British life in one sense. Yet it gave him a
very good vantage from which to be able to critique
and satirize the people and events around him.
However, he is not simply the jabbering, acid-penned
"monkey" that many of his targets were all too prone
to counter-mock him as being. Pope was a highly
intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable (when not riled),
extremely well-read genius. And even though he bears
all the regalia of the Neo-Classical scholar and poet,

yet some of his views and feelings seem like the
forerunners of English Romanticism -- he favored the
natural, unsymmetrical English garden over the stylized,
pruned, sculpted, balanced Neo-Classical gardens of the
French.
No reader should be wary of the multiple lines of
poetry which may be encountered in Pope. Simply go
slowly -- think about what he is saying and enjoy
his intelligence, his reason, his classical learning,
and even his satirical thrusts.
-- Robert Kilgore.

I have had my copy of this edition since the late 1980s. It was the required book for a graduate class on Pope. However, I was taking the undergrad Age of Satire class, which required a lesser cheap pulp paperback, with less material, less notation etc. My professor was a little miffed I took the book away from one of his grad students (it was offered in the store, I guess they only ordered so many copies??). Anyway, I wonder how many of his then grad students are still refering and reading their copies, when I have poured over mine for over 15 years now. Dr. Mell if you are reading, it is not wasted. Very few writers have crossed the path of true genius like Pope has.