Alexander Pope Vs Thomas Paine

Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” is a mock epic poem that scoffs at emotion and frivolous things that society values and instead values reason and sensibility. “The Rape of the Lock” pokes fun at people who are focused on trivial matters. Similarly, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” reiterates Pope’s thinking about reason and rationality; Paine often implies that any reader with logical and common sense thinking will agree with him. While these authors can be traced to different literary periods, Pope’s being the Augustan/Neo-Classical Period and Paine’s being the Age of Reason, both authors reflect similar ideas and thoughts about societal needs and values. The Augustan/Neo-Classical period values reason above other things, and the authors of this period often place social and societal needs above individual needs. The Age of Reason emphasizes sensibility and sincere emotion, and the works typically use plain language to engage people of all classes. While both Pope and Paine use reason as a means to refute counter arguments to reason, Pope sees reason as a learned trait whereas Paine believes that reason is something that all people have regardless of their class or upbringing.

Pope’s diction, use of satire, and general wit allows him to create a poem that mocks the upper-class without explicitly chastising them. Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” is a satirical work that exposes the shallowness that the upper and middle class British greatly cherished. The upper and middle class often owned luxurious imported goods and placed emphasis on what Pope would determine as “trivial” matters. In “The Rape of the Lock,” Pope suggests that the British society has come to cherish beauty as sacred and remarkably