To the Letter: The Material Text as Space of Adjudication in Pope's First Satire of the Second Book of Horace

Abstract

In Alexander Pope s imitations of Horace, Pope famously uses Horace's model as a legitimation and defense of his poetic provocations. Thomas Bentley noted the strategy already in 1735, when he described Popes Sober Advice from Horace as an admirable Expedient [...] to get upon the Back of HOR ACE, that you may abuse every body you don't like, with Impunity!1 Popes practice of printing certain of his imitations alongside the source-text further buttressed the protective function of the original: small numerals within the text referred the reader directly from a potentially offending line to its Horatian equivalent. But in the First Satire ofthe Second Book of Horace, the reader witnesses the legitimation not merely of themes or particular phrases, but of the satiric project itself: for the source-poem is the second of Horaces famous defenses of satire. Thus in this work Pope enacts a kind of double justification, legitimizing not only his particular choices of words and motifs, but also his chosen profession. Ironically, however, Popes strongest defense may emerge not from the alignment of his work with Horaces, but rather in its difference. For it is true that both poets set out to legitimize or justify their satire, and indeed to do so literally?putting versions of themselves in discussion with a legal counsel, and in dispute against the charge of libel (an actionable offense in both Pope's England and Horace's Rome). However, it is precisely in their use of the figure of the law that the two poems diverge. For Horace invokes the law as a kind of metaphor for the laws of genre, ultimately declaring the sovereignty of his poetry under its own, literary codes