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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) JANUARY AND MAY: OR, THE MERCHANT'S TALE - The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope
JANUARY AND MAY: OR, THE MERCHANT’S TALE - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]Edition used:The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903).
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- Editor’s Note
- Biographical Sketch
- Early Poems
- Ode On Solitude
- A Paraphrase (on Thomas À Kempis, L. III. C. 2)
- To the Author of a Poem Entitled Successio [ ]
- The First Book of Statius’s Thebais Translated In the Year 1703
- Imitations of English Poets
- Chaucer
- Spenser [ ] the Alley
- Waller On a Lady Singing to Her Lute
- Cowley the Garden
- Weeping
- Earl of Rochester On Silence
- Earl of Dorset Artemisia
- Dr. Swift the Happy Life of a Country Parson
- Pastorals
- Discourse On Pastoral Poetry
- I: Spring; Or, Damon [ ] to Sir William Trumbull
- II: Summer; Or, Alexis to Dr. Garth
- III: Autumn; Or, Hylas and Ægon [ ] to Mr. Wycherley
- IV: Winter; Or, Daphne [ ] to the Memory of Mrs. Tempest
- Windsor Forest [ ] to the Right Hon. George Lord Lansdown
- Paraphrases From Chaucer
- January and May: Or, the Merchant’s Tale
- The Wife of Bath Her Prologue
- The Temple of Fame [ ]
- Translations From Ovid
- Sappho to Phaon From the Fifteenth of Ovid’s Epistles
- The Fable of Dryope [ ] From the Ninth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
- Vertumnus and Pomona From the Fourteenth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
- An Essay On Criticism [ ]
- Part I
- Part Ii
- Part Iii
- Poems Written Between 1708 and 1712
- Ode For Music On St. Cecilia’s Day
- Argus
- The Balance of Europe
- The Translator
- On Mrs. Tofts, a Famous Opera-singer
- Epistle to Mrs. Blount, With the Works of Voiture.
- The Dying Christian to His Soul
- Epistle to Mr. Jervas [ ] With Dryden’s Translation of Fresnoy’s Art of Painting
- Impromptu to Lady Winchilsea Occasioned By Four Satirical Verses On Women Wits, In the Rape of the Lock
- Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
- Messiah
- The Rape of the Lock an Heroi-comical Poem [ ]
- Canto I
- Canto Ii
- Canto Iii
- Canto Iv
- Canto V
- Poems Written Between 1713 and 1717
- Prologue to Mr. Addison’s Cato
- Epilogue to Mr. Rowe’s Jane Shore Designed For Mrs. Oldfield
- To a Lady, With the Temple of Fame
- Upon the Duke of Marlborough’s House At Woodstock
- Lines to Lord Bathurst
- Macer [ ] a Character
- Epistle to Mrs. Teresa Blount On Her Leaving the Town After the Coronation
- Lines Occasioned By Some Verses of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham
- A Farewell to London [ ] In the Year 1715
- Imitation of Martial
- Imitation of Tibullus
- The Basset-table [ ] an Eclogue
- Epigram On the Toasts of the Kit-cat Club [ ] Anno 1716
- The Challenge a Court Ballad
- The Looking-glass On Mrs. Pulteney
- Prologue, Designed For Mr. D’urfey’s Last Play
- Prologue to the ‘three Hours After Marriage’
- Prayer of Brutus From Geoffrey of Monmouth
- To Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
- Extemporaneous Lines On a Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Painted By Kneller
- Eloisa to Abelard [ ]
- Poems Written Between 1718 and 1727
- An Inscription Upon a Punch-bowl In the South Sea Year, For a Club: Chased With Jupiter Placing Callisto In the Skies, and Europa With the Bull
- Epistle to James Craggs, Esq. Secretary of State
- A Dialogue
- Verses to Mr. C. St. James’s Palace, London, Oct. 22
- To Mr. Gay Who Had Congratulated Pope On Finishing His House and Gardens
- On Drawings of the Statues of Apollo, Venus, and Hercules Made For Pope By Sir Godfrey Kneller
- Epistle to Robert Earl of Oxford and Mortimer Prefixed to Parnell’s Poems
- Two Choruses to the Tragedy of Brutus
- To Mrs. M. B. On Her Birthday
- Answer to the Following Question of Mrs. Howe
- On a Certain Lady At Court
- To Mr. John Moore Author of the Celebrated Worm-powder
- The Curll Miscellanies Umbra
- Poems Suggested By Gulliver
- Later Poems
- On Certain Ladies
- Celia
- Prologue to a Play For Mr. Dennis’s Benefit, In 1733, When He Was Old, Blind, and In Great Distress, a Little Before His Death
- Song, By a Person of Quality Written In the Year 1733
- Verses Left By Mr. Pope On His Lying In the Same Bed Which Wilmot, the Celebrated Earl of Rochester, Slept In At Adderbury, Then Belonging to the Duke of Argyle, July 9th, 1739
- On His Grotto At Twickenham Composed of Marbles, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals
- On Receiving From the Right Hon. the Lady Frances Shirley a Standish and Two Pens
- On Beaufort House Gate At Chiswick
- To Mr. Thomas Southern On His Birthday, 1742
- Epigram
- 1740: A Poem [ ]
- Poems of Uncertain Date
- To Erinna
- Lines Written In Windsor Forest
- Verbatim From Boileau First Published By Warburton In 1751
- Lines On Swift’s Ancestors
- On Seeing the Ladies At Crux Easton Walk In the Woods By the Grotto Extempore By Mr. Pope
- Inscription On a Grotto, the Work of Nine Ladies
- To the Right Hon. the Earl of Oxford Upon a Piece of News In Mist [mist’s Journal] That the Rev. Mr. W. Refused to Write Against Mr. Pope Because His Best Patron Had a Friendship For the Said Pope
- Epigrams and Epitaphs
- On a Picture of Queen Caroline Drawn By Lady Burlington
- Epigram Engraved On the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness
- Lines Written In Evelyn’s Book On Coins
- From the Grub-street Journal
- I: Epigram
- II: Epigram
- III: Mr. J. M. S[myth]e Catechised On His One Epistle to Mr. Pope
- IV: Epigram On Mr. M[oo]re’s Going to Law With Mr. Giliver: Inscribed to Attorney Tibbald
- V: Epigram
- VI: Epitaph On James Moore-smythe
- VII: A Question By Anonymous
- VIII: Epigram
- IX: Epigram
- Epitaphs
- On Charles Earl of Dorset In the Church of Withyam, Sussex
- On Sir William Trumbull One of the Principal Secretaries of State to King William Iii
- On the Hon. Simon Harcourt Only Son of the Lord Chancellor Harcourt
- On James Craggs, Esq. In Westminster Abbey
- On Mr. Rowe In Westminster Abbey
- On Mrs. Corbet Who Died of a Cancer In Her Breast
- On the Monument of the Hon. R. Digby and of His Sister Mary Erected By Their Father, Lord Digby, In the Church of Sherborne, In Dorsetshire, 1727.
- On Sir Godfrey Kneller In Westminster Abbey, 1723
- On General Henry Withers In Westminster Abbey, 1729
- On Mr. Elijah Fenton At Easthamstead, Berks, 1729
- On Mr. Gay In Westminster Abbey, 1730
- Intended For Sir Isaac Newton In Westminster Abbey
- On Dr. Francis Atterbury Bishop of Rochester, Who Died In Exile At Paris, 1732
- On Edmund Duke of Buckingham Who Died In the Nineteenth Year of His Age, 1735
- For One Who Would Not Be Buried In Westminster Abbey
- Another On the Same
- On Two Lovers Struck Dead By Lightning
- Epitaph
- An Essay On Man [ ]
- In Four Epistles to Lord Bolingbroke
- The Design
- Epistle I of the Nature and State of Man, With Respect to the Universe
- Epistle Ii of the Nature and State of Man With Respect to Himself As an Individual
- Epistle Iii of the Nature and State of Man With Respect to Society
- Epistle Iv of the Nature and State of Man, With Respect to Happiness
- Moral Essays
- Advertisement
- Epistle I [ ] to Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham
- Epistle Ii [ ] to a Lady of the Characters of Women
- Epistle Iii [ ] to Allen, Lord Bathurst
- Epistle IV: To Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington of the Use of Riches
- Epistle V: To Mr. Addison Occasioned By His Dialogues On Medals
- Universal Prayer Deo Opt. Max.
- Satires
- Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot [ ] Being the Prologue to the Satires
- Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace Imitated [ ]
- Advertisement
- The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace
- The Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace [ ]
- The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace [ ]
- The Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace [ ]
- The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace [ ]
- The Second Epistle of the Second Book of Horace [ ]
- Satires of Dr. John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s, Versified [ ]
- Epilogue to the Satires [ ] In Two Dialogues. Written In 1738
- The Sixth Satire of the Second Book of Horace [ ]
- The Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace [ ]
- The First Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace [ ]
- The Ninth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace
- The Dunciad In Four Books
- Martinus Scriblerus of the Poem
- Preface Prefixed to the Five First Imperfect Editions of the Dunciad, In Three Books, Printed At Dublin and London, In Octavo and Duodecimo, 1727.
- The Publisher to the Reader
- A Letter to the Publisher Occasioned By the First Correct Edition of the Dunciad
- Advertisement to the First Edition With Notes, Quarto, 1729
- Advertisement to the First Edition of the Fourth Book of the Dunciad, When Printed Separately In the Year 1742
- Advertisement to the Complete Edition of 1743
- The Dunciad [ ] to Dr. Jonathan Swift
- Book I
- Book Ii [ ]
- Book Iii [ ]
- Book Iv [ ]
- Translations From Homer the Iliad
- Pope’s Preface
- Book I: The Contention of Achilles and Agamemnon
- Book II: The Trial of the Army and Catalogue of the Forces
- Book III: The Duel of Menelaus and Paris
- Book IV: The Breach of the Truce, and the First Battle
- Book V: The Acts of Diomed
- Book VI: The Episodes of Glaucus and Diomed, and of Hector and Andromache
- Book VII: The Single Combat of Hector and Ajax
- Book VIII: The Second Battle, and the Distress of the Greeks
- Book IX: The Embassy to Achilles
- Book X: The Night Adventure of Diomede and Ulysses
- Book XI: The Third Battle, and the Acts of Agamemnon
- Book XII: The Battle At the Grecian Wall
- Book XIII: The Fourth Battle Continued, In Which Neptune Assists the Greeks. the Acts of Idomeneus
- Book XIV: Juno Deceives Jupiter By the Girdle of Venus
- Book XV: The Fifth Battle, At the Ships; and the Acts of Ajax
- Book XVI: The Sixth Battle: the Acts and Death of Patroclus
- Book XVII: The Seventh Battle, For the Body of Patroclus.—the Acts of Menelaus
- Book XVIII: The Grief of Achilles, and New Armour Made Him By Vulcan
- Book XIX: The Reconciliation of Achilles and Agamemnon
- Book XX: The Battle of the Gods, and the Acts of Achilles
- Book XXI: The Battle In the River Scamander
- Book XXII: The Death of Hector
- Book XXIII: Funeral Games In Honour of Patroclus
- Book XXIV: The Redemption of the Body of Hector
- Pope’s Concluding Note.
- The Odyssey
- Book III: The Interview of Telemachus and Nestor
- Book V: The Departure of Ulysses From Calypso
- Book VII: The Court of AlcinoÜs
- Book IX: The Adventures of the Cicons, Lotophagi, and Cyclops
- Book X: Adventures With Æolus, the LÆstrygons, and Circe
- Book XIII: The Arrival of Ulysses In Ithaca
- Book XIV: The Conversation With EumÆus
- Book XV: The Return of Telemachus
- Book XVII: Book XXI: The Bending of Ulysses’ Bow
- Book XXII: The Death of the Suitors
- Book XXIV: Postscript By Pope
- Appendix
- A. a Glossary of Names of Pope’s Contemporaries Mentioned In the Poems.
- Bibliographical Note
JANUARY AND MAY: OR, THE MERCHANT’S TALE
Pope says that this ‘translation’ was done at sixteen or seventeen years of age. It was first published, with the Pastorals, in 1709, in Tonson’s sixth Miscellany. Eventually Pope grouped the Chaucer imitations with Eloisa to Abelard, the translations from Ovid and Statius and the brief Imitations of English Poets. To this collection be prefixed this Advertisement:—
‘The following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his youth; for the most part indeed but a sort of Exercises, while he was improving himself in the Languages, and carried by his early bent to Poetry to perform them rather in Verse than Prose. Mr. Dryden’s Fables came out about that time, which occasioned the Translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in Miscellanies by J. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which are added at the end, were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifteen years old; but having also got into Miscellanies, we have put them here together to complete this Juvenile Volume.’
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