I have often been fascinated by the devil. Upon hearing the word “evil,” many simply turn off, not wanting to hear anymore. Aren’t we, as good people, supposed to shun evil; do our best to destroy it; rebuke it; cast it down? Lucifer means “light bringer,” and I find that in many literary manifestations of the fallen archangel, he still fulfills that function.
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Boredom, Vice, and Poverty
Candide posits three evils to which humans are prone: boredom, vice, and poverty. In taking up Pope’s optimism, suggests Candide, one gives into passivity and moral lethargy: it avoids local problems created by random natural occurrences and human apathy.
The Heroic Couplet
The heroic, sometimes known as the closed, couplet dates back to Chaucer, who uses it in the Canterbury Tales (of course it is not the same couplet; its secondary characteristics differ, and it lacks the conciseness of Pope’s couplets). The heroic couplet achieved widespread usage, however, only after the Restoration, where one finds it both [...]
The Epic Hero
The epic hero has a double role. He (there are no epical woman heroes as far as I know) is an individual person with an habitual virtue from which his exploits flow, and he is representative of the group to whom the exploit is important.
The Secondary Epic
Secondary epics are also called literary epics and were composed by sophisticated craftsmen in a deliberate imitation of the traditional form. Their efforts is attempt to use again in new circumstances what has already been a complete and satisfactory form of literature. The literary epics are composed more for readers in their structure and language. [...]
Mock Epic
A mock epic, or mock heroic, poem imitates the elaborate form and ceremonious style of the epic genre, and applies it to a commonplace or trivial subject matter; the high brought low. In a masterpiece of this form, The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope views through grandiose epic perspective a quarrel between the beaux [...]
Garfinkle’s Celestial Matters
I’ve been thinking lately about being human. This is not necessarily a new thing for me, but, especially when I teach new media, I find myself drawn to what we humans do and what it is that defines us as human.