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13 - Money

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2008

Pat Rogers
Affiliation:
University of South Florida
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Summary

When Alexander Pope recounts the onslaught of impecunious writers who seek him out at Twickenham, he describes their typical “modest wish” for “My Friendship, and a Prologue, and ten Pound” (TE, iv, p. 99). That triad of desires captures the basic types of currency in which Pope regularly traded: professional friendship, literary commodities or words, and, of course, money. Pope dwells on these currencies in Epistle to Arbuthnot (1735) because they define the symbolic system of investment and exchange that shapes his personal and professional relationships, his poetic career, and his financial activities. These three currencies are deeply imbricated and mutually reinforcing: as Pope's professional success increased, aided in part by an ad hoc system of patronage and his savvy determination to control the publication of his texts, his financial gains outstripped those of most of his poetic contemporaries. From the earliest stages of his career, Pope realized the value of ongoing relationships (sometimes collaborative, sometime adversarial) with his colleagues in the print trade: “A mutual commerce makes Poetry flourish” (Corr, i, p. 20). By skillfully deploying printed rejoinders, financial assistance, or well-placed advice, he contributed to his consistent “fame” in the marketplace and enhanced his ability to control the production and distribution of his own texts (and the attendant socio-poetic image). That control - which ranged from holding the copyrights to his poems to determining the quality of ink and paper and the appearance of the text on the page - simultaneously enriched Pope's poetic persona and his financial accounts.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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  • Money
  • Edited by Pat Rogers, University of South Florida
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope
  • Online publication: 28 April 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521840132.014
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  • Money
  • Edited by Pat Rogers, University of South Florida
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope
  • Online publication: 28 April 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521840132.014
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Money
  • Edited by Pat Rogers, University of South Florida
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope
  • Online publication: 28 April 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521840132.014
Available formats
×