Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose

reputed to have started upon an historical poem before
reverting to myth in the Aeneid which, loosely based
upon the Odyssey (I–VI) and the Iliad (VII–XII),
imitates Homer’s form, beginning ‘in medias res’, and
abandons the linear order of an historical narrative.
138 Stagyrite Aristotle (384–322 BC) was born at Stageira
in northern Greece.
181 bays the leaves of the laurel sacred to Apollo, god of
poetry.
186 paean an ancient hymn of praise.
216 Pierian The Muses were sometimes called the
Pierides, as haunting Pieria, a district in northern
Thessaly.
225 Alps Johnson in the Life of Pope (p. 218) praises this
as one of the finest similes in English.
247 some well-proportioned dome St Peter’s basilica in Rome.
267 La Mancha’s knight Don Quixote, hero of Cervantes’
romance: the episode here mentioned is from a
continuation by another hand.
270 Dennis John Dennis (1657–1734), critic and
playwright who subsequently attacked the Essay and
The Rape of the Lock.
272 Aristotle’s rules see Introduction, p. 18.
289 conceit a far-fetched image.
321 regal purple the traditional colour of kingly robes.
328 Fungoso a character in Ben Jonson’s Every Man out
of his Humour of whom Jonson wrote: ‘one that has
revelled in his time, and follows the fashion afar off,
like a spy. He makes it the whole bent of his
endeavours to wring sufficient means from his
wretched father, to put him in the courtier’s cut at
which he earnestly aims, but so unluckily that he still
lights short a suit.’
345 open vowels There are three sets of open vowels
(hiatus) in this line.
346 expletives words that fill out as ‘do’ here.
347 ten low words a wholly monosyllabic line in which
the rhythm imitates the sense.
356 Alexandrine a line with an extra foot making six (the
next line is an example).