‘Pope’s poetry is filled with examples of individuals in
despair and, indeed, in states of mind where suicide would seem the
only logical next step. Some, like the ‘Unfortunate Lady’
and like Cato, have taken that step, but others – and Eloisa
in ‘Eloisa to Abelard’ is a supreme example – use their
despair to energise other emotions. Pope’s own tendency is to
evade full engagement with the intimacies of despair in his poetry,
sometimes even turning it to satiric purposes. Above all, though,
his writing of despair and suicide is undertaken as part of a literary
tradition that goes back to Milton and to Spenser and to the classical
period and with an awareness of the Christian faith, and of Roman
Catholicism in particular, where self-slaughter is one of the ultimate
sins.’
Professor
Allan Ingram (University of Northumbria):
‘“Mere Despair”: Alexander Pope and the Death of Hope'
