Copyright
William HutchingsPublished On
2023-12-19Page Range
pp. 155–164Language
- English
Print Length
10 pages
13. An Epistle to Allen, Lord Bathurst
- William Hutchings (author)
Chapter of: ‘Wit’s Wild Dancing Light’: Reading the Poems of Alexander Pope(pp. 155–164)
Chapter 13 illustrates how An Epistle to Allen Lord Bathurst constructs its argument by a series of character-sketches, real-life and fictional. The excessively frugal Old Cotta and his wildly extravagant son, Young Cotta, constitute a pair of extremes, while Pope’s addressee represents an admirable mean, a standard by which comic or tragic failures can be measured. Bathurst, however, could be viewed as financially and socially favoured, so the ‘Man of Ross’ (the real John Kyrle) is brought in to show that generosity can be squared with humble means. His opposite is the debauched aristocrat, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Pope depicts him with gleeful vigour, but leaves challengingly open the question of how such a grotesque figure fits with the poem’s maxim that ‘Extremes in man concur to general use’.
Contributors
William Hutchings
(author)Honorary Research Fellow at University of Manchester
William Hutchings was formerly Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Director of the Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning at the University of Manchester, UK and he is presently Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at that university. He now lectures regularly to public groups locally and nationally. He has a wealth of teaching experience on English Literature courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and is the editor of Andrew Marvell: Selected Poems, the author of The Poetry of William Cowper, and Literary Criticism: A Practical Guide for Students.