I have never cottoned much to the literature of this age, and I appreciate the ones you all have shared here, which help me to a greater appreciation. I love this one, both the form and the sentiment, as I do like a quiet life. And at age 12 with his health already declining, Pope may very well have longed for quiet and isolation. No one stays 12 for very long, but the way we feel then is often quite real, whether we retain it into adulthood or not.
I really appreciated the journey this analysis took me on as a reader of the poem. First impression, the poem itself on its own merits. Then considering whether it's a heartfelt sentiment or a stance that's more posturing and conventional. Then the surprise at the poet's age: a prodigy, not really a wonder that he's exploring conventional tropes. And finally, more biographical revelation that lets me see the exile resigning himself to his fate, back again at the possibility of that poetic conventions can still give voice to the heart's truest sentiments. I like the poem more for having considered it in so many different lights in such a short span.
In "The Garden and the City," Maynard Mack argued that the adult Pope created his garden and grotto at Twickenham as a landscape where he could "nourish the self–image of retired leisure." His self-conception as a Horatian "poet-sage, cultivator of a Muse, a garden, and himself, [with a] daily life of old-fashioned friendships and simplicity," gave him a place to stand and launch satires against the literary and political culture.
"Ode on Solitude," so well analyzed here (I especially value the metrical analysis), was certainly conventional, and Pope became anything but "unseen, unknown." But if Mack was right, there was more to his pose than allowed. Pope conducted much of literary career based on deception (e.g., his furtive role in the publication of his letters, if I remember correctly), and perhaps self-deception, but the pose became a serious one.
It's been a good 40 years since I was reading George Crabbe, but I remember thinking and perhaps writing that, when he became an absentee vicar, he understood himself to be retiring in the manner of Horace and many another 18th-century gentleman. The attempt was short lived: Crabbe's bishop rebuked him and sent him back to his living. Let's hope he treated his curate well.
Thanks for ringing the Crabbe bell again — we're doing what we can for him. I'm not surprised that Pope never resolved the ambiguities of ambition. I'm not sure a poet can.
Twelve years old? Oh my. So a conventional trope, not unlike a young Milton lamenting his 23rd birthday and thinking his life is over. Or perhaps we should change media and think of an equally young Mendelssohn. We marvel at such young gifts, much as we marvel at those recent high school graduates, whose promise is like the bright green of April, knowing that it must deepen and grow to the darker, thicker green of July and August.
I have never cottoned much to the literature of this age, and I appreciate the ones you all have shared here, which help me to a greater appreciation. I love this one, both the form and the sentiment, as I do like a quiet life. And at age 12 with his health already declining, Pope may very well have longed for quiet and isolation. No one stays 12 for very long, but the way we feel then is often quite real, whether we retain it into adulthood or not.
I really appreciated the journey this analysis took me on as a reader of the poem. First impression, the poem itself on its own merits. Then considering whether it's a heartfelt sentiment or a stance that's more posturing and conventional. Then the surprise at the poet's age: a prodigy, not really a wonder that he's exploring conventional tropes. And finally, more biographical revelation that lets me see the exile resigning himself to his fate, back again at the possibility of that poetic conventions can still give voice to the heart's truest sentiments. I like the poem more for having considered it in so many different lights in such a short span.
In "The Garden and the City," Maynard Mack argued that the adult Pope created his garden and grotto at Twickenham as a landscape where he could "nourish the self–image of retired leisure." His self-conception as a Horatian "poet-sage, cultivator of a Muse, a garden, and himself, [with a] daily life of old-fashioned friendships and simplicity," gave him a place to stand and launch satires against the literary and political culture.
"Ode on Solitude," so well analyzed here (I especially value the metrical analysis), was certainly conventional, and Pope became anything but "unseen, unknown." But if Mack was right, there was more to his pose than allowed. Pope conducted much of literary career based on deception (e.g., his furtive role in the publication of his letters, if I remember correctly), and perhaps self-deception, but the pose became a serious one.
It's been a good 40 years since I was reading George Crabbe, but I remember thinking and perhaps writing that, when he became an absentee vicar, he understood himself to be retiring in the manner of Horace and many another 18th-century gentleman. The attempt was short lived: Crabbe's bishop rebuked him and sent him back to his living. Let's hope he treated his curate well.
Thanks for ringing the Crabbe bell again — we're doing what we can for him. I'm not surprised that Pope never resolved the ambiguities of ambition. I'm not sure a poet can.
Twelve years old? Oh my. So a conventional trope, not unlike a young Milton lamenting his 23rd birthday and thinking his life is over. Or perhaps we should change media and think of an equally young Mendelssohn. We marvel at such young gifts, much as we marvel at those recent high school graduates, whose promise is like the bright green of April, knowing that it must deepen and grow to the darker, thicker green of July and August.
Spoke to me as I age into my mid eighties.