Alexander Pope
If Alexander
Pope were alive today, he would certainly be a political satirist without peer.
No doubt some of the "zing" in his pronouncements would be missing if
he had to write in prose (although he was an excellent prose writer), since
today's culture pays little heed to serious verse, preferring the inanities of
advertising jingles and "rap" lyrics. And no doubt he would be
violently attacked as "partisan" by James Carville-types unhappy with
the flick of his lash on the back of a corrupt administration. Nevertheless,
one would like to say of Pope, as Wordsworth famously did of Milton, that he
should "be living at this hour." The moral courage and intellectual
force embodied in Pope's bent, four-and-a-half foot frame would do credit to
any age. And the man who endured so many cruel reflections on his birth,
his religion, and his personal deformity, as well as his politics and writings,
would thoroughly understand what it takes for today's public figures to put up
with intense television coverage and tabloid journalism.
T. L. "Tom" Hubeart, Jr.
http://www.pennuto.com/lit/pope.htm
To Tom on Pope
When you started out you were doing fine,
But
then you inscribed that ultimate line
Of such beliefs thee I must disabuse,
The fox and the hens you surely confuse.
Never are our rulers properly bashed
Only with noodles are they occasionally
lashed.
And if your hero were living today,
They'd permit him no stage to have his say.
It's sad to say that the audience he'd get
Would only be here on the Internet.
David Martin
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