In writing his Imitations of Horace Pope was working within a tradition of the poetic Imitation which began in the mid-seventeenth century. Yet Pope's handling of this form seems particularly individual and challenging. The purpose of this chapter is to show that Pope not only drew upon but extended and developed the Restoration and ‘Augustan’ theory and practice of Imitation. Of central importance here is Pope's distinctive development of the parallel text format, where the original poem is printed along with the Imitation, but first we must put this in a wider context.

Imitations of classical and foreign writers were extremely popular from the mid-seventeenth century until at least the end of the eighteenth century. There were no doubt many reasons for this, ranging from the highest to the lowest. On the one hand, imitation of the ancients sprang from immense respect for their value and authority, and was inspired by ancient example itself, Latin literature being so dependent on Greek models and its own traditions. The classical forms of epic, ode, satire, epistle were respected in themselves and were found relevant for a remarkable range of contemporary contexts. In addition, imitation seemed to endorse ideas of general nature and general truth, the conviction that human nature and human experience, despite changes of time and circumstance, had always been the same.

On the other hand, as John Gay suggests, imitation was also an easy way of writing poems for any occasion and on any subject.