English 2610

Had Alexander Pope chosen to write his Essay on Man in prose form, I don't think I would have been half as fascinated by it, and I'm not even a poetry lover. I think of poetry vs prose as something like, a song vs a speech. The song is much easier to remember. You can remember what the general point of a speech is, but with a song, certain lines can stand out to you and you keep replaying them in your head, remembering it for much longer. That's probably a terrible analogy, I apologize, but it's all I could come up with in my sleepy state.
I think what I struck me most about An Essay on Man was it's positivity. As I was researching this particular poem, it was mentioned that it was considered "optimistic philosophy." I agree with that conclusion. I felt that part of what Pope was trying to do, is explain that though things are bad sometimes, maybe they're bad for a greater purpose. Lines 53-60 stood out to me in this respect.
"In human works, though labored on with pain/ A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;/ In God's, one single can its end produce;/ Yet serves to second too some other use./ So Man, who here seems principal alone,/ Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,/ Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;/ 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole."
LOVE it.
Another part that stood out to me (and some of you might think I'm stretching it here...and maybe I am, I don't know!) was line 185-186:
"Each beast, each insect, happy in its own;/ Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?"
When I read this, I thought back to a few years ago when I found a dead spider under a dirty sock in my laundry room. I found inspiration in that event, for some morbid reason, and I ended up writing this short story about the life of this spider, how it'd just been searching for shelter from the outside world, and ended up suffocating from the stench of my brother's dirty sock. Anyway, I think people have the tendency to flatter themselves by thinking their problems are the worst in the world, but think of that poor spider! His life was much worse than a lot of ours. (Haha, what a ridiculous thing for me to say!)
Do you get my point? I think that maybe Pope was trying to point this out, that our problems aren't the end of the world, so to speak, maybe it's all for a higher purpose, if you believe in that sort of thing. Even if you don't, I think you can get from this epistle that maybe we just need to have a more positive outlook on life. My absolute favorite line is 282. "Our proper bliss depends on what we blame."
Touche, Mr. Pope. Touche.