I’ve been listening to Alexander Pope’s collected poems. I was first inspired to do so by Anne McCaffery, whose characters often reference the poet. I was particularly struck by “The Dunciad”, a poem about crowning the King of Dulness (sic) and expanding Dulness’ empire. Pope is at his best when his tongue is sharpest, and “The Dunciad” could read as a screed against Trumpism and the creep of anti-intellectualism. Great literature remains relevant, but in light of today’s news about Roy Moore, Pope seems prescient:

All as a partridge plump, full fed and fair,

She form’d this image of well-bodied air;

With pert flat eyes she window’d well its head,

A brain of Feathers, and a heart of Lead;

And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,

But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!

Never was dash’d out, at one lucky hit,

A Fool so just a copy of a Wit;

So like, that Critics said, and Courtiers swore,

A Wit it was, and call’d the phantom Moore.

Pope, Alexander. “The Dunciad”, Book II, 41-50. In The complete poetical works of Alexander Pope. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1903. Accessed September 26, 2017. http://www.bartleby.com/203/164.html.