Other editions of book An Essay on Man. moral essays and satires

The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended this poem to be the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. The poem is an attempt to "vindicate the ways of God to Man". It challenges as prideful an anthropocentric world-view. The poem is not solely Christian, however; it makes an assumption that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation.