Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Question 1

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Pope’s enemies try to turn his own poem against him.

Answer 1

• The Epistle is written against the vanity, false taste, & misuse of riches Pope associates with the “mushroom gentry” (epitomized by Timon (Timon is a type rather than a specific person))
• As well as the nouveau riche, merchant-class families with no claim to nobility (‘noble blood’)
• But his enemies accused him of having satirized his own friend, James Brydges, Duke of Chandos (Peer with a flair for mercantilism + Friend to the Earl of Burlington)

Question 2

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Who is Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington?

Answer 2

• The poem’s addressee!
• Prominent politician, member of the Royal Society, antiquarian, & architect
• A Whig, but with a rocky relationship with the party & the House of Hanover

Question 3

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

The Palladian Style

Answer 3

• Images of the Earl of Burlington’s manor, Chiswick House
• Elementary principles of the Palladian style:
• An ‘orderly’ style
• Symmetrical, proportionate, no superficial ornament
• Complementary relationship between house & land
• Extensive, varied prospect views from different vantage points in the house
• Subordinate parts of the house are subordinated architecturally
• I.e., ‘wings’ that break off from the centre, which the servants would occupy

Question 4

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

“Epistle to Burlington”: Form

Answer 4

• Didactic
• Heroic Couplets
• Another “letter to an eminent man”
• Topographical poetry
• Augustan Satire

Question 5

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Topographical or Prospect Poetry

Answer 5

• An English tradition dating back to the 17th century
  Aemilia Lanyer, “Description of Cooke-ham” (1611), Ben Jonson, “To Penshurst” (1616), John Denham, “Cooper’s Hill” (1642), Pope, “Windsor Forest” (1713)
• Poetry that surveys a particular local landscape, rendering it in metaphorical terms
• In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries:
  the survey of the landscape often leads to a confirmation of socio-political / cosmological order
  the landscape is allegorized, & the order of the estate reflects the order of the nation / cosmos—re: “this mighty maze but not without a plan” (Essay on Man)

Question 6

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Augustan satire

Answer 6

• Begin with difference, contrast
• Then move towards cohesion, closure
• A confrontational structure
• Thesis & antithesis clash, ending finally in the reaffirmation of thesis

Question 7

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Noblesse Oblige

Answer 7

• “Nobility obliges”
• The obligations of the upper classes to those of the lower classes, esp. tenants and/or vassals
• The nobleman sets momentarily sets aside his rank/superiority, acts with generosity & honour towards his social inferiors
• The softening of class boundaries, in the name of order & contentment
• (E.g., a tenants’ feast, the waiving of rent owned, Lord Grantham’s honouring of Mrs. Patmore’s nephew)

Question 8

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Pope, “Epistle to Burlington”: Summary - Part One

Answer 8

• Pits landed gentry (inheritance) against ‘mushroom’ gentry (industry, merit)
  Inherited, innate taste vs. ‘purchased’ taste
  New monied class = a squatter on the English landscape
• Uses language of ‘parts and whole’ to make his argument
  Men of ‘taste’ (the gentry class) blend boundaries/differences softly, smoothly
  Difference must be maintained (“where order in variety we see / and where, tho’ all things differ, all agree’), but social order requires the smoothing of class tensions (through noblesse oblige)
  Men of ‘false taste’ (the mushroom gentry) don’t exercise noblesse oblige; they exacerbate difference, class tensions

Question 9

Alexander Pope - Epistle to Burlington

Pope, “Epistle to Burlington”: Summary - Part Two

Answer 9

• The aesthetic of the mushroom gentry is one of flatness, sameness, oneness
  No variety, no hierarchies, & therefore no order
  A culture of sameness, of the lowest common denominator
• Note, however, the increased attention to the ‘dunces’ here
  Affirmation of concordia discors harder to come by
  More space allocated in the poem to the ‘dunces’
  “We must bear with the Timons of the world; they are temporary, but there’s not denying they’re here (for now)”