*Pope: TROL* _On Neo-classicism_ § The English Neoclassical movement derived from both classical and contemporary French models. § Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (1711) can be called a critical manifesto of Neoclassical principles. § Neoclassicism embodied a group of attitudes toward art and human existence — ideals of order, logic, restraint, accuracy, "correctness," "restraint," decorum, and so on, which would enable the practitioners of various arts to imitate or reproduce the structures and themes of Greek or Roman originals. § Neoclassicism dominated English literature from the Restoration in 1660 until the end of the eighteenth century. § To a certain extent, Neoclassicism represented a reaction against the Renaissance view of man as a being fundamentally sound and possessed of an infinite potential for spiritual and intellectual growth. § Neoclassical theorists, by contrast, viewed man as an imperfect being, inherently sinful, with limited potential. § They replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination, on invention and experimentation, and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and reason, on restraint, on common sense, and on religious, political, economic and philosophical conservatism. § Their favorite prose literary forms were the essay, the letter, the satire, the parody, the burlesque, and the moral fable; in poetry, the favorite verse form was the rhymed couplet, while the theatre saw the development of the heroic drama, the melodrama, the sentimental comedy, and the comedy of manners… Long module. Access it at https://how.rupkatha.com/the-rape-of-the-lock/