The use of pompous expression for low actions or thoughts is the true Sublime of Don Quixote. How far unfit it is for epic poetry, appears in its being the perfection of the mock epic. It is so far from being the sublime of tragedy, that it is the cause of all bombast; when poets, instead of being, as they imagine, constantly lofty, only preserve throughout a painful equality of fustian; that continued swell of language, which runs indiscriminately even through their lowest characters, and rattles like some mightiness of meaning in the most indifferent subjects, is of a piece with that perpetual elevation of tone which the players have learned from it; and which is not speaking, but vociferating. 19
There is still more reason for a variation of Style in epic poetry than in tragic, to distinguish between that language of the Gods proper to the Muse who sings, and is inspired; and that of men who are introduced speaking only according to nature. Farther, there ought to be a difference of style observed in the speeches of human persons, and those of deities; and again, in those which may be called set harangues, or orations, and those which are only conversation or dialogue. Homer has more of the latter than any other poet: what Virgil does by two or three words of narration, Homer still performs by speeches: not only replies, but even rejoinders are frequent in him, a practice almost unknown to Virgil. This renders his poems more animated, but less grave and majestic; and consequently necessitates the frequent use of a lower style. The writers of tragedy lie under the same necessity, if they would copy nature: whereas that painted and poetical diction which they perpetually use, would be improper even in orations designed to move with all the arts of rhetoric; this is plain from the practice of Demosthenes and Cicero; and Virgil in those of Drances and Turnus gives an eminent example, how far removed the style of them ought to be from such an excess of figures and ornaments: which indeed fits only that language of the Gods we have been speaking of, or that of a muse under inspiration. 20
To read through a whole work in this strain, is like travelling all along on the ridge of a hill; which is not half so agreeable as sometimes gradually to rise, and sometimes gently to descend, as the way leads, and as the end of the journey directs. Indeed the true reason that so few poets have imitated Homer in these lower parts, has been the extreme difficulty of preserving that mixture of ease and dignity essential to them. For it is as hard for an epic poem to stoop to the narrative with success, as for a Prince to descend to be familiar, without diminution to his greatness. 21
The sublime style is more easily counterfeited than the natural; something that passes for it, or sounds like it, is common to all false writers: but nature, purity, perspicuity, and simplicity, never walk in the clouds; they are obvious to all capacities; and where they are not evident, they do not exist. The most plain narration not only admits of these, and of harmony (which are all the qualities of style) but it requires every one of them to render it pleasing. On the contrary, whatever pretends to a share of the sublime, may pass, notwithstanding any defects in the rest; nay sometimes without any of them, and gain the admiration of all ordinary readers. 22
Homer, in his lowest narrations or speeches, is ever easy, flowing, copious, clear, and harmonious. He shows not less Invention, in assembling the humbler, than the greater, thoughts and images; nor less Judgment, in proportioning the style and the versification to these, than to the other. Let it be remembered, that the same genius that soared the highest, and from whom the greatest models of the Sublime are derived, was also he who stooped the lowest, and gave to the simple Narrative its utmost perfection. Which of these was the harder task to Homer himself, I cannot pretend to determine; but to his translator I can affirm (however unequal all his imitations must be) that of the latter has been much more difficult. 23
Whoever expects here the same pomp of verse, and the same ornaments of diction, as in the Iliad, he will, and he ought to be, disappointed. Were the original otherwise, it had been an offence against Nature; and were the translation so, it were an offence against Homer, which is the same thing. 24
It must be allowed that there is a majesty and harmony in the Greek language which greatly contribute to elevate and support the narration. But I must also observe that this is an advantage grown upon the language since Homer’s time; for things are removed from vulgarity by being out of use: and if the words we could find in any present language were equally sonorous or musical in themselves, they would still appear less poetical and uncommon than those of a dead one, from this only circumstance, of being in every man’s mouth. I may add to this another disadvantage to a translator, from a different cause: Homer seems to have taken upon him the character of an historian, antiquary, divine, and professor of arts and sciences, as well as a poet. In one or other of these characters he descends into many particulars, which as a poet only perhaps he would have avoided. All these ought to be preserved by a faithful translator, who in some measure takes the place of Homer; and all that can be expected from him is to make them as poetical as the subject will bear. Many arts, therefore, are requisite to supply these disadvantages, in order to dignify and solemnize these plainer parts, which hardly admit of any poetical ornaments. 25
Some use has been made to this end of the style of Milton. A just and moderate mixture of old words may have an effect like the working old abbey stones into a building, which I have sometimes seen to give a kind of venerable air, and yet not destroy the neatness, elegance, and equality requisite to a new work: I mean without rendering it too unfamiliar, or remote from the present purity of writing, or from that ease and smoothness which ought always to accompany narration or dialogue. In reading a style judiciously antiquated, one finds a pleasure not unlike that of travelling on an old Roman way: but then the road must be as good, as the way is ancient; the style must be such in which we may evenly proceed, without being put to short stops by sudden abruptness, or puzzled by frequent turnings and transpositions. No man delights in furrows and stumbling-blocks: and let our love to antiquity be ever so great, a fine ruin is one thing, and a heap of rubbish another. The imitators of Milton, like most other imitators, are not copies but caricatures of their original; they are a hundred times more obsolete and cramp than he, and equally so in all places: whereas it should have been observed of Milton, that he is not lavish of his exotic words and phrases every where alike, but employs them much more where the subject is marvellous, vast, and strange, as in the scenes of Heaven, Hell, Chaos, &c., than where it is turned to the natural or agreeable, as in the pictures of paradise, the loves of our first parents, the entertainments of angels, and the like. In general, this unusual style better serves to awaken our ideas in the descriptions and in the imaging and picturesque parts, than it agrees with the lower sort of narrations, the character of which is simplicity and purity. Milton has several of the latter, where we find not an antiquated, affected, or uncouth word, for some hundred lines together; as in his fifth book, the latter part of the eighth, the former of the tenth and eleventh books, and in the narration of Michael in the twelfth. I wonder indeed that he, who ventured (contrary to the practice of all other Epic Poets) to imitate Homer’s lownesses in the narrative, should not also have copied his plainness and perspicuity in the dramatic parts: since in his speeches (where clearness above all is necessary) there is frequently such transposition and forced construction, that the very sense is not to be discovered without a second or third reading: and in this certainly he ought to be no example. 26
To preserve the true character of Homer’s style in the present translation, great pains have been taken to be easy and natural. The chief merit I can pretend to, is, not to have been carried into a more plausible and figurative manner of writing, which would better have pleased all readers, but the judicious ones. My errors had been fewer, had each of those gentlemen who joined with me shown as much of the severity of a friend to me, as I did to them, in a strict animadversion and correction. What assistance I received from them, was made known in general to the public in the original proposals for this work
, and the particulars are specified at the conclusion of it; to which I must add (to be punctually just) some part of the tenth and fifteenth books. The reader will now be too good a judge, how much the greater part of it, and consequently of its faults, is chargeable upon me alone. But this I can with integrity affirm, that I have bestowed as much time and pains upon the whole, as were consistent with the indispensable duties and cares of life, and with that wretched state of health which God has been pleased to make my portion. At the least, it is a pleasure to me to reflect, that I have introduced into our language this other work of the greatest and most ancient of poets, with some dignity; and I hope, with as little disadvantage as the Iliad. And if, after the unmerited success of that translation, any one will wonder why I would enterprise the Odyssey; I think it sufficient to say, that Homer himself did the same, or the world would never have seen it.
The Poems
The Twyford School, which Pope attended from 1698-99. Being a Catholic, a University career was forbidden to him.
The school today
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
ODE ON SOLITUDE
A PARAPHRASE (ON THOMAS À KEMPIS)
TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED SUCCESSIO
THE FIRST BOOK OF STATIUS’S THEBAIS
CHAUCER
SPENSER: THE ALLEY
WALLER: ON A LADY SINGING TO HER LUTE
WALLER: ON A FAN OF THE AUTHOR’S DESIGN
COWLEY: THE GARDEN
COWLEY: WEEPING
EARL OF ROCHESTER: ON SILENCE
EARL OF DORSET: ARTEMISIA
EARL OF DORSET: PHRYNE
DR. SWIFT: THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON
JANUARY AND MAY; OR, THE MERCHANT’S TALE
THE WIFE OF BATH
THE TEMPLE OF FAME
SAPPHO TO PHAON
THE FABLE OF DRYOPE
VERTUMNUS AND POMONA
THE DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL POETRY
SPRING; OR, DAMON
SUMMER; OR, ALEXIS
AUTUMN; OR, HYLAS AND ÆGON
WINTER; OR, DAPHNE
WINDSOR FOREST
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM: PART I
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM: PART II
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM: PART III
ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA’S DAY
ARGUS
THE BALANCE OF EUROPE
THE TRANSLATOR
ON MRS. TOFTS, A FAMOUS OPERA-SINGER
EPISTLE TO MRS. BLOUNT, WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE
THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL
EPISTLE TO MR. JERVAS
IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA
ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY
MESSIAH
PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON’S CATO
EPILOGUE TO MR. ROWE’S JANE SHORE
TO A LADY, WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME
UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH’S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK
LINES TO LORD BATHURST
MACER
EPISTLE TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT
LINES OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
A FAREWELL TO LONDON
IMITATION OF MARTIAL
IMITATION OF TIBULLUS
THE BASSET-TABLE
EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB
THE CHALLENGE
THE LOOKING-GLASS
PROLOGUE DESIGNED FOR MR. D’URFEY’S LAST PLAY
PROLOGUE TO THE ‘THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE’
PRAYER OF BRUTUS
TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: CANTO I
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: CANTOII
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: CANTOIII
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: CANTOIV
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: CANTOV
ELOISA TO ABELARD
AN INSCRIPTION UPON A PUNCH-BOWL
EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ., SECRETARY OF STATE.
A DIALOGUE
VERSES TO MR. C.
TO MR. GAY
ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES
EPISTLE TO ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER
TWO CHORUSES TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS
CHORUS OF ATHENIANS
CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS
TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTHDAY
ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS. HOWE
ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT
TO MR. JOHN MOORE
UMBRA
BISHOP HOUGH
SANDYS’ GHOST
EPITAPH
THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS
ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING PAPER
EPIGRAM: AN EMPTY HOUSE
ODE TO QUINBUS FLESTRIN
THE LAMENTATION OF GLUMDALCLITCH FOR THE LOSS OF GRILDRIG
TO MR. LEMUEL GULLIVER
MARY GULLIVER TO CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER
ON CERTAIN LADIES
CELIA
PROLOGUE (TO A PLAY FOR MR. DENNIS’S BENEFIT)
SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY
VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE
ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM
ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS
ON BEAUFORT HOUSE GATE AT CHISWICK
TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN
EPIGRAM (“MY LORD COMPLAINS”)
EPIGRAM (“YES! ‘T IS THE TIME”)
1740: A POEM
TO ERINNA
LINES WRITTEN IN WINDSOR FOREST
VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU
LINES ON SWIFT’S ANCESTORS
ON SEEING THE LADIES AT CRUX EASTON WALK IN THE WOODS BY THE GROTTO
INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO, THE WORK OF NINE LADIES
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF OXFORD
ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE
EPIGRAM ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
LINES WRITTEN IN EVELYN’S BOOK ON COINS
EPIGRAM (“DID MILTON’S PROSE”)
EPIGRAM (“SHOULD D[ENNI]S PRINT”)
MR. J. M. S[MYTH]E
EPIGRAM ON MR. M[OO]RE’S GOING TO LAW WITH MR. GILIVER
EPIGRAM (“A GOLD WATCH FOUND”)
EPITAPH ON JAMES MOORE-SMYTHE
A QUESTION BY ANONYMOUS
EPIGRAM (“GREAT G[EORGE]”)
EPIGRAM (“BEHOLD! AMBITIOUS”)
ON CHARLES, EARL OF DORSET
ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL
ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT
ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.
ON MR. ROWE
ON MRS. CORBET
ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HON. R. DIGBY AND OF HIS SISTER MARY
ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER
ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS
ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON
ON MR. GAY
INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON
ON DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY
ON EDMUND, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
ANOTHER ON THE SAME
ON TWO LOVERS STRUCK DEAD BY LIGHTNING
ON JOHN GAY
ESSAY ON MAN: EPISTLE I.
ESSAY ON MAN: EPISTLE II.
ESSAY ON MAN: EPISTLE III.
ESSAY ON MAN: EPISTLE IV.
EPISTLE I. TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, LORD COBHAM
EPISTLE II. OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN
EPISTLE III. OF THE USE OF RICHES
EPISTLE IV. OF THE USE OF RICHES
EPISTLE V. TO MR. ADDISON, OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS
UNIVERSAL PRAYER
EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT
THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE
THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE
THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE
SATIRES OF DR. JOHN D
ONNE, DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S, VERSIFIED
EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES
THE SIXTH SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE
THE SEVENTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE
THE FIRST ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE
THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE
THE THREE BOOK DUNCIAD, 1728
THREE BOOK DUNCIAD. BOOK THE FIRST.
THREE BOOK DUNCIAD. BOOK THE SECOND.
THREE BOOK DUNCIAD. BOOK THE THIRD.
DUNCIAD VARIORUM, 1732
THE PROLEGOMENA
THE NEW DUNCIAD, 1742
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK I
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK II
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK III
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK IV
ILIAD BOOK I. THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON
ILIAD BOOK II. THE TRIAL OF THE ARMY AND CATALOGUE OF THE FORCES
ILIAD BOOK III. THE DUEL OF MENELAUS AND PARIS
ILIAD BOOK IV. THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE
ILIAD BOOK V. THE ACTS OF DIOMED
ILIAD BOOK VI. THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE
ILIAD BOOK VII. THE SINGLE COMBAT OF HECTOR AND AJAX
ILIAD BOOK VIII. THE SECOND BATTLE, AND THE DISTRESS OF THE GREEKS
ILIAD BOOK IX. THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES
ILIAD BOOK X. THE NIGHT ADVENTURE OF DIOMEDE AND ULYSSES
ILIAD BOOK XI. THE THIRD BATTLE, AND THE ACTS OF AGAMEMNON
ILIAD BOOK XII. THE BATTLE AT THE GRECIAN WALL
ILIAD BOOK XIII. THE FOURTH BATTLE CONTINUED, IN WHICH NEPTUNE ASSISTS THE GREEKS. THE ACTS OF IDOMENEUS
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 146
