Pope and the Tides of Taste

REVIEWS POPE AND THE TIDES OF TASTE A. S. P. WOODHOUSE OF the four books to be considered here, one is a general account of Pope's career in poe~ry by a veteran American scholar and teacher;l a second is a much more specialized study of his aims and techniques by a young English critic;' the remaining two deal with the eighteenth-century background-the aesthetic background, broadly and practically conceived,' and the religio-philosophi c.' The books admirably supplement one another, and in their divergent purposes and methods they exhibit something of the range and variety of English studies today. Whatever its origin-it is described as a series of essaysProfessor Root's volume suggests in its form a course of university lectures. Much less a handbook than the well-known ChauaT and His Poetry, it is recognizably from the same pen, and it is likely to win not less favour from students. Professor Root commences with two admirable chapters, on the canons of poetic art as Pope understood them (the meanings and demands of nature, .reason, taste), and on the heroic couplet as of the essence of Pope's art on its technical side; thereafter he settles down to a chronological survey of Pope's achievement, with chapters on the Pastorals, "The Maze of Fancy," the Homer, "The Dunciad of 1729,'" "Moralized Song," "The Art of Satire," and "The Dunciad of 1743." Throughout , there is a considered and skilful distribution of weight between information, exposition, and criticism. What the author deems the needful facts are all given; but they are n·ever allowed to become obtrusive or to control the development of a book whose main purpose and method are expository. It follows that the criticism ITh~ Pol!lica/ Career of Aluandtr Pope, by Robert Kilburn Root, Princeton University Press, 1938, $2.50. 20n J/u Poelry of Pope) by Geoffrey Tillotson, Clarend. on Press, 193~, $2.25. 3TideJ in English Tosle (1619-1800): A BoclcgroundJor lhe Study of L iterature, by B. Sprague AUeo, Harvard University Press, 1937, 2 vals., $8.00 a set. tRehgious Trends in English Poclry. Vol. I: 1700-~O, Protellan/ism and 1M CUll of SmJ;mml, by Hoxie Neale Fairchild, Columbia University Press, 1939, $5.00. 'OriginaUy the introduction to his valuable edition of the Dunciad Pariorum. 461 462 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY (chiefly appreciative) is also subordinated to the exposition and interwoven with it. Professor Root knows that if he can get others to read Pope as he reads him, with understanding, the poet will not lack for admirers. Thus his critical end is served. In a sense it is an old-fashioned method, or at least a conservative-which is simply another way of saying that it has been tried and not found wanting. We should modify it in one respect only: in our view the needful facts embrace rather more of the history of sen timents and opInIons. If the method is old-fashioned the conclusions are not. Professor Root recognizes Pope for the "very considerable poet" he is, and says so in no uncertain terms. He completely repudiates the unbelievable straw figure, erected to the greater glory of Wordsworth , to which he (like so many others) must have been solemnly introduced in undergraduate days; and he joins the younger critics in their reaction in favour of the real Pope. But he does not overstate his case-and in this he is perhaps a day's march ahead of the vanguard. The Poetical Career oj Alexander Pope is a first-rate introduction to its subject, a product of mature scholarship, and written with distinction and grace. It is for readers who have mastered the facts and ideas set forth by Professor Root that Mr Tillotson's On the Poetry oj Pope will prove most i1luminating. He is concerned not at all with expound. ing the content of Pope's individual works, nor much with the development of his poetic career. He recognizes, of course} the difference between the earlier Pope who wandered in Hfancy's maze" (for more years than he cared to admit) and the later who "stooped to truth and moralized his song;" but...