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Pope's Social Satire: Belles-Lettres and Business

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Hugo M. Reichard
Hugo M. Reichard*
Affiliation:
Duke University, Durham, N. C.
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Extract

The modern redemption of the Dunciad has been in part a demonstration that the poem deals with extant dunceness more than with forgotten dunces. By way of extending the demonstration, I wish to show how luminously Pope associates the spread of bad books with the dynamics of a commercialized society. While dealing of course with other problems too, the Dunciad and its pendants treat a notable aspect of the issue which pervades and unifies most of his mature satire—the antinomy of mercenary and humane values. Repeatedly between 1728 and 1743 Pope contemplates the predicament of a nation that is “sunk in lucre's sordid charms” and of men who are “alike in nothing but one lust of gold.” He protests the corrupt practices of politicians like Walpole, the extravagance of aristocrats like Timon, and the acquisitive enterprise of business men like Balaam. As far afield as the great Parisian banquet of the Dunciad (iv.549-564) Maynard Mack has sensitively detected Pope's animus toward a “money culture.” Since it underlies his general outlook of gloom, this animus is even behind the sighs for a “sinking land” which appear briefly amid the spacious optimism of the Essay on Man (iv.265-266). A similarity between two of Pope's finest symbols marks the special place of the Dunciad within his vision of evil: in the Epilogue to the Satires the goddess Vice rules an avaricious world by means of “golden chains” (i.147-148, 161-162); and Dulness, the deity of the Dunciad, fixes society to a bimetallic standard of “lead and gold” (iv.13-16).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , June 1952 , pp. 420 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952

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References

1 Major contributions to the redemption have been made by Robert K. Root, The Poetical Career of Alexander Pope (Princeton, 1938), pp. 125-155, 215-226; George Sherburn, “The Dunciad, Book iv,” Studies in English (Austin, Texas, 1945), pp. 174-190; and Reginald H. Griffith, review of James Sutherland, ed. The Dunciad, in PQ, xxiv (1945), 152-157.

2 Moral Essay iii, vs. 143; Imit. of Hor., Ep. i.i., vs. 124. My citations from the Dunciad, the Imitations, and the Essay on Man are to The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, Maynard Mack, and James Sutherland (London, 1939-50), Vols. iii.i, iv, and v. Citations from the Moral Essays and other poems not yet published in the Twickenham edition are to Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Whitwell Elwin and William J. Courthope (London, 1871-89). Finally, the Dunciad is cited in the 1743 (or “B”) version, unless otherwise specified.

3 “‘Wit and Poetry and Pope’: Some Observations on His Imagery,” in Pope and His Contemporaries, ed. James L. Clifford and L. A. Landa (Oxford, 1949), p. 30.

4 For a stimulating account of Pope's gloom, with an emphasis different from mine, see Louis I. Bredvold, “The Gloom of the Tory Satirists,” in Pope and His Contemporaries, pp. 1-19.

5 Essay on Man iii.283-286, iv.263-266; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i., vss. 203-204; Epil. to the Sats., Dial. ii, vss. 212-215.

6 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 135-146.

7 Ibid., vs. 291.

8 For examples of such aristocratic efforts and enthusiasms see Moral Essay iv, vss. 133-140; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i., vss. 105-106, 310-311; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 16, 149, 243-244, 279-280, 322-323; Epil. to the Sats., Dial. i, vss. 45-50, 68-72; Dial. ii, vss. 160-161, 168-227; Dunciad ii.379-382 and iv.45-50, 94-118, 541-548, 567-568.

9 Dunciad iv.92-102. See also ii.25-26 and Moral Essay iii, vss. 237-248.

10 Dunciad ii.191-220; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 231-266; Second Satire of Donne, vss. 25-26.

11 Dunciad, i.6, 299-318; iii. 319-338; iv.181-188.

12 Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i., vss. 13-14, 209-212, 368-369; Sat. ii.i., vss. 21-32. Fourth Satire of Donne, vss. 102-107; Moral Essay i, vss. 139-140; Moral Essay ii, vss. 181-192; Epil. to the Sats., Dial. ii, vss. 220-231.

13 Dunciad ii.269-358 (vss. 275-280 are quoted); see also i.205-214; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vs. 251; Epil. to the Sats., Dial. ii, vss. 140-156.

14 Dunciad i.304, iii.179-184, 323, iv.98; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i., vss. 370-379.

15 Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i., vss. 290-337 (vss. 304-317 are quoted); see also Dunciad i.69-72, ii.221-230, iii.228-272, 307-316.

16 Dunciad i.37-44.

17 Ibid., ii.31-190, 221-418.

18 Moral Essay iii, vs. 140; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i., vss. 172-173.

19 Dunciad i. 263-264, 269-270; Imit. of Hor., Ep. i.vi, vs. 43.

20 “Epilogue to Mr. Rowe's Jane Shore,” vss. 39-44; Dunciad i.85-104, iii.277-282, iv.127-134.

21 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vs. 98; Dunciad i.223, 326, iii.209.

22 Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i, vss. 169-170 (italics mine) and 310-313.

23 Dunciad ii.3-4, 51-52, 69-72, 78, 101-102, 113-116, 121-140, 151-156.

24 Ibid., i.39-40, ii.157-190, with Pope's notes to vs. 157.

25 Ibid., ii.78; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 63, 180.

26 Dunciad i.127-134, ii.45-50, 115-140, 191-220, 269-358; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 51-54, 103-124, 179-184, 239-240, 338, 374-387; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i, vss. 209-212.

27 Imit. of Hor., Ep. n.i, vss. 169-170, 179-190, 406-407; Ep. ii.ii, vss. 70-71, 135-146; Sat. ii.i, vss. 99-100; Second Satire of Donne, vss. 27-28; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 1-6, 19-22, 151-156, 223-228; Dunciad i.123-126, 279-281, and (A) iii.159 n.

28 Dunciad, ed. cit., p. 205 (“The Publisher to the Reader”).

29 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ed. G. B. Hill (Oxford, 1905), iii, 204.

30 The stress is exemplified by Dunciad i.37-44, 55-78, 93-106, 115-134, 169-190, 273-286; ii.221-268; iii.135-212, 227-272; iv.21-44, 627-640.

31 Ibid., i.45-54.

32 Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i, vss. 198, 302-303; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 62-63, 180; Second Satire of Donne, vss. 13-20, 25-26; Dunciad ii.78.

33 Dunciad n.37-42; see also i.35-36, 48, 115-120, 185-186; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 13-14, 44, 131, 151-156.

34 Dunciad n.22-23, 27-30, 279-282, 420, iii.37-40; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 41-42.

35 Dunciad i.48, 295, ii.614, 117-118, 147-150, 420-428, iii.34; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 13, 43, 156; Imit of Hor., Sal. ii.i, vs. 99.

36 Pope to Caryll, 27 Sept. 1732; Elwin-Courthope, vi, 234.

37 Imit. of Hor., Ep. i.vi, vss. 81-82; Ep. ii.ii, vss. 226-229; Sat. ii.vi, vss. 145-148; Moral Essay ii, vss. 17-20; Essay on Man iv.193-205.

38 Moral Essay iii, vss. 229-282; Moral Essay iv, vss. 169-184; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 231-266; Second Satire of Donne, vss. 113-124; Imit. of Hor., Sat. ii.ii, vss. 111-122; Dunciad ii.330, iv.132.

39 Moral Essay ii, vss. 77-81; Essay on Man iv.79-80; Imit. of Hor., Ep. i.vii, vss. 69-70; Ep. ii.ii, vs. 295.

40 Dunciad ii.332; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.ii, vss, 68-69.

41 Dunciad, ed. cit., p. 15 (“A Letter to the Publisher,” by “William Cleland”). Cf. Second Satire of Donne, vss. 13-14.

42 Pope's note to Dunciad (A), i.41. The note is substantially unchanged at (B), i.34. Italics mine.

43 Pope's note to Dunciad (A), ii.270 or (substantially unchanged) (B), ii.282.

44 Lives, ed. Hill, ii, 399.

45 Editors of the Dunciad should perhaps put into their prolegomena this (and only this) pensée of Oscar Wilde: “Wealthy people are, as a class, better than impoverished people, more moral, more intellectual, more well behaved. There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else. That is the misery of being poor” (Plays, Prose Writings, and Poems, Everyman ed., p. 265). Before accepting the passage as an epigraph, Pope himself would doubtless have undermined “moral” with the qualifier “in petty affairs,” for his rich knaves and dunces do not disgrace themselves by picking pockets.

46 Dunciad i.52-54, ii.207-208, iv.101-102; Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 48, 113-114, 131, 151, 364; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i, vs. 192.

47 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 33-46; cf. Imit. of Hor., Ep. i.i, vss. 77-84. See also Dunciad iii.157-164.

48 Second Satire of Donne, vss. 11-12; Imit. of Hor., Ep. ii.i, vss. 189-190.

49 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vss. 360-365.

50 Dunciad iv, initial note by Pope.

51 Dunciad, ed. cit., p. 51 (“Martinus Scriblerus of the Poem”). See also iii.299-300.

52 Epil. to the Sats., Dial. ii, vss. 38-51, 140-156; Moral Essay iii, vss. 135-150; Imit. of Hor., Sat. ii.i, vss. 71-72; Dunciad iv.492-626.

53 Dunciad iv.599-604.

54 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, vs. 180; Imit. of Hor., Ep. i.i, vs. 86; Epil. to the Sats., Dial. i, vs. 14; Dial. ii, vs. 49.

55 Dunciad i.28, 311-314, iv.1-44, 581-582, 605-656; Moral Essay iii, vss. 11-12, 137-138.