I hope that your understanding of Pope’s “Essay on Man” was deepened and enriched by our class on Wednesday, Sept. 22nd. In a comment on this post, please share your most important “takeaways” from our exploration of the poem together. What idea made the strongest impression on you? What lingering questions are you left with? What did you learn? How did your view of the work change as a result of our discussion? (These questions are just suggestions. It’s up to you to decide what direction you’d like your response to take.) Please share your responses by Sunday, September 26th.
After discussing about “Essay on Man” in class, the last line “Whatever is, is right” stuck out to me because it embodies what I think to be the main idea of this essay. I think that Pope is trying to say how everything happens for a reason and that we, as people who are at the bottom of the chain, should just accept what happens to us or around us because whatever happens is meant to be. Seeing as how Pope didn’t really have a great childhood growing up, that last line also seems to be something that he’s trying to say or reassure his past self, that the difficulties he had to face happened for a reason and it’s just is what it is and he should accept it. With this belief however, he seems to dismiss the idea that we should look into why or how things happen. He seems fine with just accepting that whatever is, is right without interrogating if it’s really right or why it’s right. This leads me to wonder if there were any backlash to his essay upon publication.
From our exploration of the poem, I learned more about the author. I believe that the mention of his health was important and tied into the text. Pope tries to make a connection between nature and God/religion. I remember my mother telling that healthy people have many wishes but the sick only have one. Pope doesn’t want to abandon his faith for the sake of the scientific revolution. From my knowledge, in my religion (Christianity), forsaking God is the worst unforgivable sin you can do. I think the 2 ideas are connect since Pope was sick and tried to hold on to his faith.
Important takeaways I took from the discussion in class was that everyone has a fate to follow, which includes all the good and bad about their life. The idea of “A Mighty Maze” also lingers in my mind. I believe Pope was trying to say that like a maze, there are many paths to take and many dead ends like the bad experiences that people face, but that all helps people get back on the right track once they hit a dead end. Another thing I took away is that each person is no better than the other person. People shouldn’t be too greedy with desires to be better. What I mean by that is people shouldn’t be too greedy to want more than what they are capable of, which can disrupt the balance that already exists. After reading and discussing the essay in class, I would say this essay helps people come more to terms with their experiences. I would consider myself to be one of them too.
As per our class discussion on “Essay On Man”, an important takeaway personally I thought was interesting would be how the pope expressed the creation of life and how that many things happen for a reason. This can relate to todays analogy. In my opinion as a result this can lead one to take several paths on what they will achieve. Based on my learning the scientific revolution was also huge in this situation. Science versus religion with fate.
An important “takeaway” from the exploration of the poem was Pope’s attempt to balance religiousness and the ideas behind the scientific revolution. Something I learned is that at the time Pope wrote the poem, the scientific revolution called for reasoning and logic above faith and religion. People no longer trusted in what could not be seen and instead began relying on their senses to essentially make sense of the world around them. Because of this, religion was viewed as unreliable; however, Pope sought to defend faith and religion, whilst trying to prove he was still a rational man. Furthermore, the scientific revolution forced people to create boundaries between religion and society. For example, the idea of separation of Church and state in the United States represents that boundary. What is interesting to me, is that the same battles of religion and reason that occured during Pope’s time are still occurring today. This is evident when talking about contemporary issues such as vaccine mandates and legislation on abortion; the lines between Church and state are often blurred. The idea that made the strongest impression on me was the quote “whatever is, is right.” This made a strong impression, because sometimes I feel like as a society we try too hard to make sense of the world around us. I think it is important for us as human beings to accept that this is the life and planet we have, and for whatever divine reason we should just enjoy it and not try to control or dominate whatever is.
From our discussion on the article “Essay On Man,” what stood out to me was when Pope engages his audience to accept their perspectives of God. The line that stood out is lines 99-101 when he explains how each individual can understand God in their ways. He illustrates that everyone needs to understand themselves to know God and to respect our beliefs. Not only that, you should know about others too because they might accept you for who you are. Pope wants us to understand that we should accept the world as it is now because not everyone would have the same view as we do. My question is how others view God and whether or not their beliefs are respected by one another?
To be honest, before we had the discussion in class, I am confused about what was “Essay on Man” talking about. I am bad with the language that is being used back in the 18th century. After our discussion about “Essay on Man”, the idea that stood out to me was Pope is telling us that things happen because it was meant to happen. Pope himself was not a healthy person, but he doesn’t complain and continue living his life until the last moment. Similarly, Pope is telling us that things could get hard during our lifetime, however, just accept that you are going through a hard time. Because it was meant to happen, why don’t we look positively, and maybe we could even learn something from the tragedy?
From our analyzation and discussion about “Essay On Man”, my most important takeaways is Pope’s view on why tragedies’ happen. When we were talking about why Pope’s comment on why tragedies happen in class, it really took me by surprise because when you dissect his words their is this his philosophy behind it all. It made me takeaway how Pope is trying to explain to the readers that this is how life is and it is not negative thing, this is just how the book of fate cycles. The idea that made the strongest impression on me was “Heaven from all creature hides from the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state.” This idea had the strongest impression on me because I believe their is something more Pope is trying to explain then just what fate is. What I took away from this is that their is this double meaning for “book of Fate”, Pope is trying to explain how people will use the bible as something to give meaning on their life and something to follow, but people who follow the book of life have this issue with ignoring some of the rules it comes with it. Pope explains it in this quote here, ” That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven”, this is an indication how people will follow the book of fate and only complete the tasks that will grant them to heaven. The lingering questions I have left from this reading consist of, is Pope just talking about how the cycle of life works? Or is he also implying how people will gravitate to the holy bible as a way to grant them a way to have meaning in their lives? What I have learned from this text is that we should not worry about what life has in store for us, but focus more on the now and what ever happens to be a lesson for us. When reading Pope’s work I had a similar idea on what we have discussed in class, but I never knew how deep his view on life was and why certain events happen. I believe us discussing it in class helped me understand what is intentions was when making this text and better understand this genre as a whole.
In a comment on this post, please share your most important “takeaways” from our exploration of the poem together. What idea made the strongest impression on you? What lingering questions are you left with? What did you learn? How did your view of the work change as a result of our discussion?
The idea that made the strongest impression on me is that Pope seems to genuinely believe that everything happens for a reason. It is an interesting take on the question, “Do we really have free will, or is everything already decided beforehand?” A lot of people take this approach, Pope believes it is “God’s Plan,” others may call it the “Universe’s Plan.” I wonder what Pope would think about the world today. Would he say that surgery and the technological advancements are God’s will, the answer to people’s prayers? Or would he think that something like pacemakers are unnatural, and defying God’s plan?
I also find it interesting that Pope’s answer to the argument of, “If there is a God, why are there bad people?” is that bad people exist for a reason, God knows why he put them on earth.
At first, I had difficulty understanding the text. After the class discussion, the major takeaway I got is that Pope believes everything in this world made by God is “perfect” in a way. One example would be when he says “Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly” on page 349. I got the impression that Pope thinks if humans needed a microscopic eye, God would gave one. I find it interesting since Pope is explaining things that many atheists (and even agnostics) might wonder like why bad things happen in which Pope explained that there is a reason and only God knows. Because of people like these doubting God, I think this text can be applied to today.
After exploring the poem together in class, it made me realize how optimistic Pope and his ideas were. I think one of the more important quotes that highlight this optimism would be the idea that “Whatever is, is right.” It’s giving readers the impression that no matter how things are in life, at its current moment, the good and the bad, it was meant to be. In addition to that, Pope’s discussion of how evil is implemented in our world flips how we usually view evil as a whole. Instead of looking at the evil as something negative, Pope is pushing the idea that maybe the “evil” is here to help improve ourselves in one way or another. I think looking at such a positive set of morals is quite refreshing because a lot of what we currently see in media, and how we interact and think in today’s time, is rather pessimistic and negative.
After going deeper into the poem in class, I was further enriched with understanding the language and points that were being made. After I had read my own section I wasn’t positive that I understood exactly what the author was trying to convey. However, after our class discussion, it reinforced what I had originally thought about the text, as well as giving me further points that I had missed. Also, it was just great in general to listen to how other classmates interpreted their sections of the text, and after the class ended I felt that I had a good overall understanding of the text as a whole, sort of like puzzle pieces. my section in the text explored the fact that humans often are greedy and always seem to be unpleased and desire more. The section emphasizes the author’s point that in fact we are given all the tools and “powers” as he calls them, that are necessary. As he states, why would we be given powers that are unnecessary and would not benefit us?
After reading an “essay on a man” , the idea that had the strongest impression on me was when he mentioned about universal order and that above everything reason was superior to all, something that for now only humans have proven to have. Something that I wished he would have mentioned is why even though he thought everything happens for a reason and his heavy criticism on humans, why above that did he mention that us humans are superior for having reason. I think this text was a bit difficult to understand because of the high vocabulary and old English but reading it more than once and discussing it in class really helped because we connected all the ideas together. I learned how to improve my critical thinking skills and learned about many ideas in the text that I hadn’t heard of before.
When I first read this, It was little hard to understanding. especially, religious and scientific backgrounds in18century. he emphasizes the maintaining order to prevent the breaking down of the universe. because people used to think that universe was created by God. and also mordern science was not as advanced as it is today. If you understand the historical background and religious background, you can understand it a little more easily.
I was able to understand more easily in class that shared and discussed ideas. It was good to share the section I interpreted with other students.
The most important “takeaways” from our class discussion was the pope’s belief that humankind can do no wrong and that action may seem to be evil on the surface but has a good reason behind it. One of the lingering questions was what consider a good reason to do evil deeds. Who gets to decide if an evil deed has a good reason. The pope has given an example when Columbus sail to the Americas and thousands of deaths of natives but also results in global trade and made Europe the center of the world. This shows that the pope sees it from a European perspective and thing that benefits them is always a good thing. In conclusion, from the “Essay on Man”, I learn that the pope believes humankind is inherently “perfect” in some way in the eyes of a European. It changes from a non-bias view on man to a European view on morality.