earticle

영어

One of the outstanding authors in the great tradition of British satire, Alexander Pope composed Of the Use of Riches: An Epistle to the Right Honourable Allen Lord Bathurst and “The Rape of the Lock.” This paper explores the masterpieces and discusses Pope’s concern and anxiety about the increasing threat from capitalism and commodity culture, which attempt to erode humanity and moralistic virtues. This paper examines a societal collapse and the regression of the traditional order evinced in An Epistle and “The Rape.” What is remarkable about An Epistle and “The Rape” is that they observe the massively grotesque and displeasing topic of a fall of morality with humorous and energetic imagination. In the literary landscape shown in An Epistle and “The Rape” money and commodities are nothing but the root of all evil; but Pope still recognizes the mesmerizing power of money and objects as well. This paper discusses Pope’s intriguing and curious efforts to keep a very strange balance between the love and fear of money and commodities. The contradictory pressures provide a highly charged literary intensity to An Epistle and “The Rape.” In Britain’s economic system, the virtue of moderation advocated in An Epistle and “The Rape” could solve the social, economic and psychological problems at hand.