Pope and the Great Compromise?
The age of the Enlightenment changed the face of Europe, if not the world. It was time where all social conventions were challenged, people questioned the constraints of their society, and most notably thinkers began to emphasize reason.
Prior to this age, reason was not used in forming explanations of the universe, or mans place in it. The church and rulers of the time understood that without reason, whatever ridiculous claims they made can always be believed. However, during the Enlightenment people began to realize that the only way to make sense of the universe was through rational conclusions.
With that being the premise of the Enlightenment, I was a bit stunned by Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man”. This philosophical poem, I thought, was desperately trying to blend two separate ways of thinking. In this work, Pope was trying to present a rational argument about man’s place in the universe, however he did so by alluding to pre-Enlightenment ideas of religion and the great chain of being.
Section IV (page 347-348), Pope describes mans pride as his greatest failure, in the attempt to aspire to higher rank in the great chain of being he claims man “wishes to invert the laws of Order”. This seems to be a direct reaction to the rejections of religion and old order during the Enlightenment. However, Pope’s execution of this attack is clever- because he attacks reason with reason. Which is clearly seen in section VIII (page350), where Pope uses obvious examples of the visible world to prove his point of a hierarchy unseen.
Furthermore, in the end of epistle 1, Pope makes is very clear that the only way to ensure man’s safety is to stay true to God’s order. While reading this essay, I was unclear weather or not Pope was just rejecting Enlightenment ideas, or was he trying to find a compromise between the Enlightenment and pre-existing ideas.
The whole essay was Pope making the argument that man cannot understand a system, in which he is a part of. However, his argument was very rational- so was he trying to tell everyone to slow down in the quest of knowledge and answers. His use of rationality made his essay more convincing to readers, who otherwise might have just rejected the essay in full. Yes, men were making great strides during this time, but Pope’s point might be that some things are best left not understood, giving more clarity to a then unclear world.
One response so far
One notion that I didn’t really get in Pope’s “An Essay on Man” was the fact that he argues that man cannot understand a system in which he is a part. When you think about it, it is a bit of a contradiction, for Pope is part of the system, and by saying that it cannot be explained, he is explaining it in a way (defining something by defining what it is not).
Also, I was amazed by the impact that such a text can still have today. Indeed, most of the situations that Pope is describing can be seen nowadays, like for instance the “wish to invert the laws of Order”. However, such a wish can sometimes be a positive one, and even aspiring to the values that Pope is putting forward (take for instance the numerous revolutions that took place a couple of years ago)