Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key
This article discusses the image and function of the key in Alexander Pope’s works, and its involvement in various attempts to understand and explain him. As a device for encrypting or decrypting a code, a ‘key’ permits either the further concealment or revelation of meaning, and sometimes both: a s...
| מחבר ראשי: | |
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| פורמט: | Journal article |
| יצא לאור: |
Oxford University Press
2016
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| _version_ | 1826295622766952448 |
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| author | Johnston, F |
| author_facet | Johnston, F |
| author_sort | Johnston, F |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This article discusses the image and function of the key in Alexander Pope’s works, and its involvement in various attempts to understand and explain him. As a device for encrypting or decrypting a code, a ‘key’ permits either the further concealment or revelation of meaning, and sometimes both: a sense which enters the language with Francis Bacon in 1605, but which is not fully realized as a satirical opportunity until the early eighteenth century. The subgenre of the ‘key’ may be a small part of the unwholesome trade of deciphering, but it raises vital questions about originality, authority, cooperation, competition, and group identity. Keys to Pope’s, Swift’s, and Gay’s works suggest some fruitful ways in which to track rival theories about their own writing and its reception; at its ornate Scriblerian best, the key is a riddling device, furthering the obscurity rather than breaching the mysterious specificity of the original. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T04:03:53Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:c57f348c-1eb5-40e3-9ab7-3a5f2c99ae02 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T04:03:53Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:c57f348c-1eb5-40e3-9ab7-3a5f2c99ae022022-03-27T06:31:18ZAlexander Pope: Unlocking the keyJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c57f348c-1eb5-40e3-9ab7-3a5f2c99ae02Symplectic Elements at OxfordOxford University Press2016Johnston, FThis article discusses the image and function of the key in Alexander Pope’s works, and its involvement in various attempts to understand and explain him. As a device for encrypting or decrypting a code, a ‘key’ permits either the further concealment or revelation of meaning, and sometimes both: a sense which enters the language with Francis Bacon in 1605, but which is not fully realized as a satirical opportunity until the early eighteenth century. The subgenre of the ‘key’ may be a small part of the unwholesome trade of deciphering, but it raises vital questions about originality, authority, cooperation, competition, and group identity. Keys to Pope’s, Swift’s, and Gay’s works suggest some fruitful ways in which to track rival theories about their own writing and its reception; at its ornate Scriblerian best, the key is a riddling device, furthering the obscurity rather than breaching the mysterious specificity of the original. |
| spellingShingle | Johnston, F Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key |
| title | Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key |
| title_full | Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key |
| title_fullStr | Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key |
| title_full_unstemmed | Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key |
| title_short | Alexander Pope: Unlocking the key |
| title_sort | alexander pope unlocking the key |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT johnstonf alexanderpopeunlockingthekey |