Windsor Forest

by Alexander Pope

Modeled in large part on John Denham's Cooper's Hill, Alexander Pope's Windsor Forest became the model for dozens of eighteenth-century topographic poems in which descriptions of particular places were used as vehicles for historical reflections on British history.

Genres: Poetry, 18th Century, Read For School, Classics

62 pages

First published January 1, 1713

About the author

People best remember The Rape of the Lock (1712) and The Dunciad (1728), satirical mock-epic poems of English writer Alexander Pope.

Ariel, a sylph, guards the heroine of The Rape of the Lock of Alexander Pope.


People generally regard Pope as the greatest of the 18th century and know his verse and his translation of Homer. After William Shakespeare and Alfred Tennyson, he ranks as third most frequently quoted in the language. Pope mastered the heroic couplet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...

Reviews

[Jacky Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I detest the long 18th century as a literary epoch, but there is something fascinatingly delightful about Pope: the obvious, lavish desire to please and appeal and praise with rounded, architectural rhythms and formes undercut by an equally obvious subversiveness and bitterness and marginality. Really makes you reconsider what poetry is and how it should be read; I look forward to working on Windsor Forest

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this poem, the rhythm made it easy to read despite all the classical references that make it harder to understand. It didn't need to be as long as it was, but overall I didn't hate reading it.

[Dalia · Rating 2 out of 5]

i didi not like this kind of his works


just tow stars

[Nora · Rating 1 out of 5]

one star because i needed a dictionary at all times

[Bree Hatfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

“‘Tis yours, my Lord, to bless our soft retreats,
And call the Muses to their ancient seats,
To paint anew the flow’ry sylvan scenes,
To crown the forests with immortal greens,
Make Windsor hills in lofty numbers rise,
And lift her turrets nearer to the skies;
To sing those honors you deserve to wear,
And add new luster to her silver star.”

Read for British Literature.

3.5 stars. I’m a sucker for flowery, romantic nature poetry. While this isn’t a nature poem in the traditional sense, it’s still a pastoral poem praising the land of Windsor Castle and England as a whole. I loved all of the divine and supernatural metaphors, especially since none of them were christian-based. I don’t quite understand the political commentary enough to speak on it, but the whole poem has a sense of glory and peace to it, so it didn’t feel out of place to me. Overall, very good poem! Much better than some other premodern poems I’ve read.

[Alex Lauff · Rating 2 out of 5]

As of this writing I see little literary value in this work. Sound like a poem I wrote in 5th grade. Yes I am salty that I just read over 400 lines of this.

[Nathanael Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

no more Pope please i can't wait for the Romantics

[Natalie Kavanagh · Rating 1 out of 5]

no way my uni made me read a poem about a woman's lock of hair being cut off

[17CECO · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars! Eat that Pope.

Echoes in Dryden, Pope of the stodgy CW workshop poetics of balance, every line offering the reader something, yarm yawp yarm, etc. Particularly those imagistic lines that represent concordia discors. See the play of color here: "Here in full light the russet plains extend; / There wrapped in clouds the bluish hills ascend. / Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes." Get a little queasy every time I have to read Pope.
/
Returned to this to see the ways in which Pope was inverting some of his pastoral images in writing the Fleet Ditch games, particularly those that involve waters and the Thames--what flows into & out of it. Here, empire. Really struck by how self-consciously his landscape is. Compared to the Romantics, its almost refreshing. As in, no one would mistake this for anything but an allegorical wood. Anyway.