The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems Part 26

'344 These:'

critics who care for the meter only in poetry insist on the proper number of syllables in a line, no matter what sort of sound or sense results. For instance, they do not object to a series of "open vowels,"

'i.e.' hiatuses caused by the juxtaposition of such words as "tho" and "oft," "the" and "ear." Line 345 is composed especially to show how feeble a rhythm results from such a succession of "open vowels." They do not object to bolstering up a line with "expletives," such as "do" in l.

346, nor to using ten "low words," 'i.e.' short, monosyllabic words to make up a line.

'347'

With this line Pope pa.s.ses unconsciously from speaking of bad critics to denouncing some of the errors of bad poets, who keep on using hackneyed phrases and worn-out metrical devices.

'356 Alexandrine:'

a line of six iambic feet, such as l. 357, written especially to ill.u.s.trate this form. Why does Pope use the adjective "needless" here?

'361 Denham's strength ... Waller's sweetness:'

Waller and Denham were poets of the century before Pope; they are almost forgotten to-day, but were extravagantly admired in his time. Waller began and Denham continued the fas.h.i.+on of writing in "closed" heroic couplets, 'i.e.' in verses where the sense is for the most part contained within one couplet and does not run over into the next as had been the fas.h.i.+on in earlier verse. Dryden said that "the excellence and dignity of rhyme were never fully known till Mr. Waller taught it," and the same critic spoke of Denham's poetry as "majestic and correct."

'370 Ajax:'

one of the heroes of the 'Iliad'. He is represented more than once as hurling huge stones at his enemies. Note that Pope has endeavored in this and the following line to convey the sense of effort and struggle.

What means does he employ? Do you think he succeeds?

'372 Camilla:'

a heroine who appears in the latter part of the 'aeneid' fighting against the Trojan invaders of Italy. Virgil says that she was so swift of foot that she might have run over a field of wheat without breaking the stalks, or across the sea without wetting her feet. Pope attempts in l.

373 to reproduce in the sound and movement of his verse the sense of swift flight.

'374 Timotheus:'

a Greek poet and singer who was said to have played and sung before Alexander the Great. The reference in this pa.s.sage is to Dryden's famous poem, 'Alexander's Feast'.

'376 the son of Libyan Jove:'

Alexander the Great, who boasted that he was the son of Jupiter. The famous oracle of Jupiter Ammon situated in the Libyan desert was visited by Alexander, who was said to have learned there the secret of his parentage.

'383 Dryden:'

this fine compliment is paid to a poet whom Pope was proud to acknowledge as his master. "I learned versification wholly from Dryden's works," he once said. Pope's admiration for Dryden dated from early youth, and while still a boy he induced a friend to take him to see the old poet in his favorite coffee-house.

'391' admire:

not used in our modern sense, but in its original meaning, "to wonder at." According to Pope, it is only fools who are lost in wonder at the beauties of a poem; wise men "approve," 'i.e.' test and p.r.o.nounce them good.

'396-397'

Pope acknowledged that in these lines he was alluding to the uncharitable belief of his fellow-Catholics that all outside the fold of the Catholic church were sure to be d.a.m.ned.

'400 sublimes:'

purifies.

'404 each:'

each age.

'415 joins with Quality:'

takes sides with "the quality," 'i.e.' people of rank.

'429'

Are so clever that they refuse to accept the common and true belief, and so forfeit their salvation.

'441 Sentences:'

the reference is to a mediaeval treatise on Theology, by Peter Lombard, called the 'Book of Sentences'. It was long used as a university text-book.

'444 Scotists and Thomists:'

mediaeval scholars, followers respectively of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. A long dispute raged between their disciples. In this couplet Pope points out that the dispute is now forgotten, and the books of the old disputants lie covered with cobwebs in Duck-lane, a street in London where second-hand books were sold in Pope's day. He calls the cobwebs "kindred," because the arguments of Thomists and Scotists were as fine spun as a spider's web.

'449'

"The latest fas.h.i.+onable folly is the test, or the proof, of a quick, up-to-date wit." In other words, to be generally accepted an author must accept the current fas.h.i.+on, foolish though it may be.

'457'

This was especially true in Pope's day when literature was so closely connected with politics that an author's work was praised or blamed not upon its merits, but according to his, and the critic's, politics.

'459 Parsons, Critics, Beaus':