He was not a great thinker; the thoughts which he
embodies in his philosophical poems--the _Essay on Man_ and the rest,
are almost ludicrously out of proportion to the solemnity of the titles
which introduce them, nor does he except very rarely get beyond the
conceptions common to the average man when he attempts introspection or
meditates on his own destiny. The reader in search of philosophy will
find little to stimulate him and in the facile Deism of the time
probably something to smile at. Pope has no message to us now. But he
will find views current in his time or borrowed from other authors put
with perfect felicity and wit, and he will recognize the justice of
Addison's comment that Pope's wit and fine writing consist "not so much
in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an
agreeable turn." And he will not fall into the error of dubbing the
author a minor poet because he is neither subtle nor imaginative nor
profound. A great poet would not have written like Pope--one must grant
it; but a minor poet could not.
It is characteristic of Pope's type of mind and kind of art that there
is no development visible in his work. Other poets, Shakespeare, for
instance, and Keats, have written work of the highest quality when they
were young, but they have had crudenesses to shed--things to get rid of
as their strength and perceptions grew.
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