SOURCE: “Introduction: Imitation and Commerce,” in Alexander Pope: The Genius of Sense; Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 1-14.

In the following essay, Morris discusses Pope's attitudes toward the literary past, particularly his “veneration” of Dryden's poetry, in terms of both the classical theory of mimesis and contemporary mercantile doctrines of trade.

The best history of a writer is contained in his writings—these are his chief actions.

—George Eliot

Only a handful of writers are sufficiently central that we name whole ages after them. Thus we speak of an Age of Wordsworth but not an Age of Keats, a Pound Era but not a Williams Era or an Age of Frost. Alexander Pope is the major poet of his century, and the period of his lifetime (1688-1744) might be justly called, give or take a few years, the Age of Pope. Pope's importance, however, extends far beyond his own...