Regime Change
Soon after the Hanoverian succession, Pope ceased writing original poems of consequence and instead began two new projects: his translation of the Iliad and the publication of his collected Works of 1717. This chapter asks what prompted this change of direction. The opening section traces Pope’s movements and those of his friends during the messy and unpredictable transfer of power in 1714. Although Pope’s private correspondence and manuscript poems signal his disaffection with the new regime, his public persona is distinctly apolitical. Pope countered accusations of treachery by disowning political readings of his earlier poems and by rebranding those works as timeless literary exercises. His translation of Homer and the publication of his Works were calculated to enshrine his reputation as an author of classic literary status. By publishing a Works and not a Poems on Several Occasions, this chapter argues, Pope inserted himself into a canonical tradition divorced from contemporary poems on affairs of state. His emergence as a literary colossus was motivated by political necessity as much as it was by raw ambition or vanity.