Show Posts
1
Brandon Sanderson / Mistborn and Alexander Pope
« on: June 08, 2009, 08:38:07 PM »
So yesterday, I was idly meandering the path of mental tangents, and happened to remember one of my favorite poems: An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. We read it in my World Lit class a couple semesters ago and I was the only person in the class who actually understood what it said, let alone actually liked it. But then I got to thinking.... isn't it a perfect example of the consequences of the Lord Ruler's actions in Mistborn? Take this passage in particular:
Discuss. Oh, and if you haven't read Epistle I of Essay on Man, you can Click Here to read it.
Quote
Vast chain of being! which from God began;
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, who no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee;
From thee to nothing.--On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed:
From Nature's chain whatever link you like,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th'amazing Whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the Whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,
Planets and stars run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God!
Discuss. Oh, and if you haven't read Epistle I of Essay on Man, you can Click Here to read it.