— Anonymous
For it to be considered a “Great Work,” in my opinion, the literary piece must have a message that had its fair share of aging through time but is still considered valid today. In that case, Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man” delivers exactly that. From start to finish, Pope’s philosophical take on the relationship between man and the universe on his first epistle was a very challenging yet interesting piece to read. Various allusions and references of different contexts to God and the bible left me confused and wondering what they meant so I had to reread a line over and over again until I got the idea. In this work, Pope argues that Man, “. . . who here seems principal alone, [p]erhaps acts second to some sphere unknown” (lines 57-58). At first, the message he is trying to convey wasn’t clear to me. Reading it for the first time left me with more questions than answers. In all honesty, his use of deep English words and historical references did not make it easier for me to enjoy such a relatively wonderful piece of literature, but the poetic lines kept me engaged throughout. As an avid reader, these left me clueless, so I thought initially that he is probably just illustrating that Man is second only to and created by God because of his references to the Garden of Eden, the Angels, and the Natural Order. The second time around, however, made me realize that the message he is trying to tell his readers is that man is ignorant of his place as a piece of a bigger machine called the universe and the natural order. Philosophically, this holds value to me as it made me think about life in general and the rapid technological advancement that has been happening both in Pope’s time and in today’s society, and so I asked myself: If Man is indeed a part of a bigger picture and second only to God, then doesn’t technological advancement impede the natural order as we become enslaved to it, and thus, artificial intelligence, if made self-conscious and power-hungry, as seen in movies such as I Robot and Ex Machina, would be the new God? Mind-boggling, I know, but you can’t deny that this may be true. I don’t know about you but removing technology in this generation and the future so the Natural Order is satisfied would mean going back to the primitive era, and I don’t want to be another Mr. Flintstone.
