Alexander Pope
1. In “An Essay on Man”, Alexander Pope makes generalizations about people’s negative and positive characteristics. Describe his generalizations about positive characteristics in one paragraph and describe his broad comments about negative traits in another paragraph.
Pride is a positive characteristic shown in “An Essay on Man”, he gives the idea of refusing to human limitations, to feel no difference between pain an pleasure. Intelligence, knowledge, he emphasizes on humans having knowledge of everything, reasoning just to err, and saying the truth out in every aspect of life are some of the positive characterizations Alexander Pope shows about human beings when he wrote “An Essay on Man”.
At the same time he doubted that human beings could gain knowledge o anything and also made some emphasize on the limitations of human beings. He shows that men were born just to die, and when they reason, they reasoned just to make mistakes. Passion is used as negative generalization in this essay, shows that it tends to create confusion and chaos.
2. Do you think that Pope has a positive or negative opinion of human beings and why?
In my opinion Alexander Pope has a negative opinion on human beings because he emphasizes a lot on how humans err, how passion brings them to destruction and how humans use their knowledge in ways that are not positive and because of this lack of knowledge they make mistakes.
3. Do you agree with Pope’s characterization of man kind? In one paragraph.
In some ways I have to admit that I agree with Pope’s characterization of human beings. I think that men are basically searching for wrong doings instead of making things right. It is much easier for people to do wrong than to do right, and when they act right they usually feel like if they have to be rewarded for following the right path instead of thinking that that is what they should have done from the beginning and has no reason for being rewarded.
Quotable Wisdom
In his heroic couplets, Alexander Pope, offers what he thought were nuggets of wisdom. Write 4 of your favorite couplets below. Underneath each couplet, state whether you think Pope’s advice is wise or foolish, and support your opinions with examples from your life or someone you know.
Which of the above couplets do you think gives more useful advice? Why? One paragraph.
Think of advice that you would give to someone, confused or in trouble, and write your advice in a couplet form. (Iambic pentameter and AA rime)
