An Essay on Man

        Alexander Pope wrote  “An Essay on Man” and it is in The Norton Anthology World Literature: Shorter Third Edition, Volume Two.  Alexander Pope lived 1688-1744 and wrote “An Essay on Man”. It is known as one of Pope’s best works. It is written in heroic couplets. Pope had good understanding of religion because he came from a Roman Catholic family. He only could attend illegal Catholic schools at times. He was not able to attend a university. There were strict rules against Catholics because of James II in England. Pope did get inspired  by religion and wrote “An Essay on Man”.

In all ages humankind has wondered why our universe being created by God can be so disordered. Pope wrote that the universe is ordered in spite of evil in the world.  Pope  spoke of a divinely ordered universe that men rebel against trying to change what God created. God is all-knowing and knows that what he created was good. Man just has to accept the univerese for what it is. Pope shared his belief in the chain of being.

Pope connected all creation here on earth with what the eye could not see the tines test things in life and the universe that was too far away to see. According to Pope in “An Essay of Man”:

“. . . Vast Chain of Being! Which from God began.

Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect  
what no eye can see,

No glass can reach: From infinite to thee,

From thee to Nothing.- On superior powers

Were to press, inferior might on ours; . . .” (ins.237-242).

Pope relates his ideas to creation and the divine order of the world created by God.

Popes last lines in “An Essay of Man” were:

        “. . . All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;

        All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;

        All Discord, Harmony not understood;

        All partial Evil, universal Good:

        And, spite of pride, in erring Reason’s spite,

        One truth is clear, Whatever is, is Right. . .” (ins. 289-294).

Pope said that because of mankind’s interference in creation causes the disorder in the world. God created the world to work in divine balanced way. When evil is brought it changes what was intended. Man was not created for evil, but good. Man’s choice against creation is interference. Pope answered the questions that people had in his “An Essay on Man”  in his time. These same truths are applicable for today’s questions that are the same: Why is does the perfectly ordered universe have evil in it?

    


Works Cited

Pope, Alexander. “An Essay on Man”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Shorter Third Edition, Two- Volume Set. W.W. Norton. Ed. M Puchner. 2012. 90-97. Print.