"Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady", also called "Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady", is a poem in

heroic couplet A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the ''Legend of ...

s by

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

, first published in his ''Works'' of 1717. Though only 82 lines long, it has become one of Pope's most celebrated pieces.

Synopsis

The work begins with the poet asking what ghost beckons him onward with its "bleeding bosom gor'd"; it is the spirit of an unnamed woman (the "lady" of the title) who acted "a ''Roman's'' part" (i.e., committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

) due to loving "too well." The speaker eulogizes her sacrifice and then for several lines berates and curses her uncle (who is also her guardian) for being a "mean deserter of isbrother's blood" and having no compassion on the lady. There follows a description of her foreign burial in a "humble grave" unattended by friends and relatives, which Pope sums up in the striking couplet: The concluding lines contain the speaker's application of this lesson of mortality to himself: someday he too will die and the last thought of the lady will be torn from him as he passes away.

Subject

Frederic Harrison Frederic Harrison (18 October 1831 – 14 January 1923) was a British jurist and historian. Biography Born at 17 Euston Square, London, he was the son of Frederick Harrison (1799–1881), a stockbroker and his wife Jane, daughter of Alex ...

believed the subject of the work to be Elizabeth Gage (died 1724), wife of John Weston (died 1730) of

Sutton Place, Surrey Sutton Place, north-east of Guildford in Surrey, is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house built c. 1525 by Sir Richard Weston (d. 1541), courtier of Henry VIII. It is of great importance to art history in showing some of the earliest traces of ...

. She was the sister of

Thomas Gage, 1st Viscount Gage Thomas Gage, 1st Viscount Gage (c. 1695 – 21 December 1754) of High Meadow, Gloucestershire and later Firle Place, Sussex, was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons as a Whig for 33 years between 1717 and 1754. ...

(died 1754). Harrison derives his opinion from a note of Pope's appended to a letter of his to Mrs Weston, and states the story of the poem to be pure imagination: "Mrs Weston was separated from her husband, but she returned and lived in peace. She did not die abroad, friendless and by suicide, but in the bosom of her family, by natural causes, and in her own home. She was in fact buried in the (Weston) family vault in Guildford in 1724, eleven years after Pope's outburst". Harrison, Frederic. Annals of an Old Manor House: Sutton Place, Guildford. London, 1899, p.141

Reception

Readers' reactions to this work have been varied, and some have offered severe criticisms.

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

in "Thoughts on the Character and Writings of Mr. Prior" (1782) compared the poet

Matthew Prior Matthew Prior (21 July 1664 – 18 September 1721) was an English poet and diplomat. He is also known as a contributor to '' The Examiner''. Early life Prior was probably born in Middlesex. He was the son of a Nonconformist joiner at Wimborne ...

with Pope, mostly to the detriment of the latter; in this essay, Wesley says of Pope: Wesley exemplifies this, quoting the lines: Most of Wesley's grounds for criticism are moral: since—as he would consider self-evident—suicide is an evil act that affronts

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

and causes the doer to go to

hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

, the glorification of the lady's act in this poem is seriously objectionable. (This did not, however, prevent him from quoting the couplet given above in his ''Journal'' on more than one occasion ee December 5, 1750 and July 4, 1786)

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

in his ''Lives of the Poets'' also faulted the "Elegy" on similar grounds, referring to "the illaudable singularity of treating suicide with respect." A different kind of criticism, one on artistic grounds, is made by Maynard Mack in his important biography ''Alexander Pope: A Life.'' Mack acknowledges that there are beautiful passages in the poem, but also finds that it is marked by a certain incoherence between elements and attitudes which are not fully reconciled, such as the idea of Roman suicide vs. that of Christian burial, or the strange curse on the uncle and all his posterity for his unspecified crimes. Johnson also anticipates some of this artistic censure in judging that "the tale n the poemis not skilfully told." In spite of such objections, most critics would not deny the emotional impact of Pope's "Elegy," and even Johnson acknowledges that the poem "must be allowed to be written in some parts with vigorous animation, and in others with gentle tenderness." It is frequently included in anthologies that include Pope's best-known poems or those of his era, and the "Elegy's" effective phrasing is often remembered and quoted.

References

Sources

* * John Wesley, "Thoughts on the Character and Writings of Mr. Prior" and "Journals" in ''Wesley's Works'' as given in "The Master Christian Library" v. 8 (b
Ages Software
. * Maynard Mack, ''Alexander Pope: A Life.'' NY: Norton, 1985, pp. 312–19. . * Samuel Johnson, "Pope" artial excerpt from ''Lives of the Poets'' in Donald Greene, ed., ''Samuel Johnson: The Major Works.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 739. .

External links

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...