Reconciling Pope’s own views with his fatalistic description of the universe represents an impossible task. The first epistle of An Essay on Man is its most ambitious. Pope states that his task is to describe man’s place in the “universal system” and to “vindicate the ways of God to man” (16).
Alexander Pope's poem “An Essay on Man” was an expression of his philosophy of man's place in the universe.
At its outset, Pope commands man to “Know then thyself,” an adage that misdescribes his argument (1). Although he actually intends for man to better understand his place in the universe, the classical meaning of “Know thyself” is that man should look inwards for truth rather than outwards.
An Essay on Man was written by Alexander Pope in 1733-34 and was published anonymously. The Essay presents a contradictory situation through which Pope steers the readers between the new age of mathematical and scientific certainty and that of the older traditional ecclesiastic faith.
