Landscapes and estates

An appetite for ambivalence: Pope studies in the twenty‐first century

“…Terry also emphasizes the heterogeneity of the mode that it cannot be reduced purely to a comedic or satirical impulse and that in Pope's case, it corresponds to a crucial, recurring idea: “every attribute is capable of manifesting itself equally as a vice or a virtue” (, p. 136). We are likely to conclude, based on older works of criticism (Fuchs, ; Stack, ) as well as newer (Kelsall, ; Wood, ), that this same idea was chiefly responsible for Pope's gravitating toward Horace as his main source of classical inspiration in works of the 1730s. Malcolm Kelsall links Horace to the opportunities for “disruption” in Pope's attitudes to landscape design and property ownership (, p. 168).…”

“…We are likely to conclude, based on older works of criticism (Fuchs, ; Stack, ) as well as newer (Kelsall, ; Wood, ), that this same idea was chiefly responsible for Pope's gravitating toward Horace as his main source of classical inspiration in works of the 1730s. Malcolm Kelsall links Horace to the opportunities for “disruption” in Pope's attitudes to landscape design and property ownership (, p. 168). Nigel Wood contends, convincingly, that Pope adopted a Horatian persona in the full knowledge that it would be “multivalent,” divided between what was “outward‐facing” and “a less easily discerned private dimension” (, p. 17).…”