Alexander Pope

I am in a creative writing class and our first attempt in writing was poetry form. To my teacher's credit, she had us try many different forms but in the end we could basically choose to write our poems however we liked. I found it interesting that most of the students preferred to write in free verse... almost prose like. I, on the other hand, felt that writing in form, a strict form even, held more interest for me. In this, I felt a instant connection with Alexander Pope and his preferred motive of writing.
Many of the students in my class felt confined by the limits places on form writing. I liked how Pope justified his choice not only because he found it was a shorter way to convey his ideas, but because it allowed him to write without "sacrificing perspicuity to ornament" and without "breaking the chain of reasoning". In other words, the form actually helped to keep his thoughts on track without becoming too "dry and tedious". Amen! I am not a usually a fan of philosophical writing for that very reason. It reminds me a little of lawyer-writing. It takes time to read and re-read and I find it quite repetitive. "An Essay on Man" was nothing like that for me. It held my interest and I really enjoyed it. I believe this is due in part to Pope's ingenious choice to write in poetry... even rhyming form.
I also thought that it tied in nicely with his "An Essay on Criticism" because his stayed true to his belief that in order not to threaten the reader with sleep, you needed to write something new and interesting. To describe something in the "same unvaried chimes, with sure returns of still expected rhymes" (348-349) was not true writing.