ABSTRACT
The masters whom Pope followed most consistently in his career were Horace and Boileau. His Pastorals were, to be sure, of Virgilian derivation, but if he wrote a little “Ode to Solitude,” it was perfect Horace; his Essay on Criticism was formed after both Horace and Boileau, and his satires and epistles show the same discipleship.1 Nevertheless, Pope owed much to native English writers: he is “discovered” at three different periods of his career reading the Faerie Queene; investigation has brought to light as many echoes of Miltonic phrases in his work as any other poet of the century can show;2 his versification was a development from the techniques of Dryden. In him, without animosity, diverse traditions meet. To both Pope and his school true poetry was universal, and on such principle one should admire both Horace and Spenser, both Boileau and his greater contemporary, John Milton. The antagonisms later premised between classic and romantic were non-existent in his day: one was both-though doubtless Horace and Boileau were the dominant influences.
