Alexander Pope cytaty

Alexander Pope – czołowy poeta angielskiego Oświecenia, zdeklarowany katolik i torys.

Za właściwy debiut literacki Alexandra Pope'a uważa się publikację poematu Wiersz o krytyce, wzorowanego na kodeksie XVIII-wiecznego klasycyzmu Nicolasa Boileau. Od tego czasu jego twórczość − choć jednolita stylistycznie i spójna światopoglądowo − obejmowała całą różnorodność znanych wówczas gatunków literackich oraz kręgów zainteresowań, od satyry oraz poematu heroikomicznego, którego był przedstawicielem, aż do poważnych poematów filozoficznych krzewiących wiarę w dobroć Boga, a nawet pieśni religijnych.

Alexander Pope od przeszło dwustu lat pozostaje na językach krytyki literackiej jako bohater jednego z największych sporów w historii poezji angielskiej, w której niektóre stronnictwa obniżają rangę jego twórczości, a nawet odbierają mu miano poety. Jednocześnie, jako aforysta, jest obok Williama Szekspira najczęściej cytowanym Wyspiarzem. Do dziś uważa się go również za największego poetę swojego pokolenia, pierwszego mistrza angielskiej satyry oraz najwybitniejszego twórcę poematu heroikomicznego.

Choć Pope uosabiał wszystkie cechy angielskiego Oświecenia, a więc epoki niejako przestarzałej w ujęciu rodzącego się romantyzmu, jego dzieła odegrały ważną rolę w twórczości takich poetów, jak George Gordon Byron czy Adam Mickiewicz, a współcześni badacze coraz częściej widzą w nich niejasny zwrot w stronę „rewolucji romantycznej”. Wątek ten stanowi jeszcze jedno pole sporu o poezję Pope'a.

Dewizą Alexandra Pope'a było powiedzenie: „Wszystko co jest, jest właściwe”. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. Maj 1688 – 30. Maj 1744
Alexander Pope Fotografia
Alexander Pope: 172   Cytaty 3   Polubienia

Alexander Pope słynne cytaty

„Ci, co najbardziej zasługują na pochwały, najlepiej znoszą krytykę.”

Źródło: „Przekrój”, tom 2, Krakowskie Wydawnictwo Prasowe, 1976, s. 10.

„Choć rankiem chwalą to, co potępiają w nocy,
mówią, że ostatnie tylko zdanie w mocy.”

Źródło: Eleanor Herman, W łóżku z królem. 500 lat cudzołóstwa, władzy, rywalizacji i zemsty. Historia metres królewskich, tłum. Katarzyna Kołaczkowska, Wydawnictwo Jeden Świat, Warszawa 2006, ISBN 8389632268, s. 155.

„Jakież to szczęście wieść niewinny żywot.
Być umarłym dla świata i tym się nie martwić.
O! Wieczna jasności wolnego umysłu!
Modlitw jesteś godna, choć prośbami gardzisz.”

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot?
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned. (ang.)

Alexander Pope cytaty

„Duma, nigdy niezawodząca przywara głupców.”

Pride, the never-failing vice of fools. (ang.)
Źródło: O krytyce, część II

„Ten, kto szuka czegoś bezbłędnego, wszędzie myśli o tym, czego nie było, nie ma i nie będzie.”

Źródło: „Przekrój”, wydania 1–13, Krakowskie Wydawnictwo Prasowe, 2000, s. 28.

„Błądzić to rzecz ludzka, przebaczać – boska.”

Źródło: „Przekrój”, wydania 1–13, Krakowskie Wydawnictwo Prasowe, 2000, s. 28.

Alexander Pope: Cytaty po angielsku

“They shift the moving toyshop of their heart.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto I, line 100.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“At every word a reputation dies.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto III, line 16.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto III, line 7.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto II, line 52.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto V, line 33.
Wariant: Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Źródło: The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just: politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely and eternally right, — but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him.
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.
1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Źródło: An Essay on Criticism

“Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto II, line 13.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

Źródło: An Essay on Criticism (1711)

“So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.”

Źródło: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 45. Compare Pope's The Odyssey of Homer, Book XVIII, line 269.
Kontekst: Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

“Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame”

Stanza 1.
The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712)
Kontekst: Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

“I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets.”

Preface.
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)
Kontekst: I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken.

“Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd;
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.”

"Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet" (1730).
Kontekst: So unaffected, so compos'd a mind;
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so retin'd;
Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd;
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

“I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.”

Preface.
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)
Kontekst: I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.

“Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.”

Źródło: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 45. Compare Pope's The Odyssey of Homer, Book XVIII, line 269.
Kontekst: Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

“What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.”

Źródło: Essay on Man and Other Poems

“Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed”

Letter, written in collaboration with John Gay, to William Fortescue (23 September 1725).
A similar remark was made in a letter to John Gay (16 October 1727): "I have many years magnify'd in my own mind, and repeated to you a ninth Beatitude, added to the eight in the Scripture: Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
Wariant: Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Kontekst: "Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth Beatitude which a man of wit (who, like a man of wit, was a long time in gaol) added to the eighth.

“Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.”

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
Źródło: Miscellanies in Verse and Prose. by Alexander Pope, Esq; And Dean Swift. in One Volume. Viz. the Strange and Deplorable Frensy of Mr. John Dennis. ... Epitaph on Francis Ch-Is. Soldier and Scholar. with Several More Epigrams, Epitaphs, and Poems.

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