{"id":71719,"date":"2014-05-23T13:21:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T17:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=71719"},"modified":"2017-05-23T08:40:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T12:40:14","slug":"the-inquisitive-fallacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/the-inquisitive-fallacy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inquisitive Fallacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A professor\u2019s unlikely quest for busts of Alexander Pope.<\/em><\/p>\n<script>\/* <![CDATA[ *\/ portfolio_slideshow.slideshows[949] = {\"timeout\":\"4000\",\"autoplay\":\"false\",\"trans\":\"fade\",\"loop\":\"true\",\"speed\":\"400\",\"nowrap\":\"true\"}; \/* ]]> *\/<\/script><div id=\"slideshow-wrapper949\" class=\"slideshow-wrapper clearfix portfolio-slideshow-centered\">\n<div id=\"slideshow-nav949\" class=\"slideshow-nav\">\n\t<a class=\"pause\" style=\"display:none\" href=\"javascript:void(0);\">Pause<\/a>\n\t<a class=\"play\" 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1\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/1-roubiliac_alexander-pope.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"432\" alt=\"Slide 2\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/2-roubiliac_alexander-pope.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"449\" alt=\"Slide 3\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/3-roubiliac_alexander-pope.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"430\" alt=\"Slide 4\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/8-roubiliac_alexander-pope.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"397\" alt=\"Slide 5\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/11-roubiliac_alexander-pope.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"438\" alt=\"Slide 6\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/7-nickolls_popes-villa.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"317\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 7\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/4-carpentiers_roubiliac-modelling.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"482\" alt=\"Slide 8\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/6-kneller_alexander-pope-profile.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"489\" alt=\"Slide 9\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/9-pope_works-of-pope.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"600\" width=\"405\" alt=\"Slide 10\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"slideshow-meta\">\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n<\/div><\/div><!--#slideshow-wrapper-->\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/britishart.yale.edu\/exhibitions\/fame-and-friendship-pope-roubiliac-and-portrait-bust-eighteenth-century-britain\" target=\"_blank\">Fame and Friendship: Pope, Roubiliac, and the Portrait Bust in Eighteen-Century Britain<\/a>,\u201d recently on view at the Yale Center for British Art, tells a curious tale of Alexander Pope\u2019s legacy, focusing on the strange fervor that continues to surround busts and portraits of him. Pope, whose birthday was earlier this week, was a household name, at least in one sector of British society. He was the first English poet to publish two volumes of his own collected works while living\u2014and with the publication of the first volume, he also became the first English author to sustain himself entirely on the proceeds of his work. And he didn\u2019t lead a meager existence. Pope was able to lease a sizable villa near Richmond, a painting of which was on view in Yale\u2019s exhibition.<\/p>\n<p>For any writer, these achievements would\u2019ve been no small feat, but they\u2019re especially impressive in light of Pope\u2019s many obstacles. He was a Catholic at a time when Catholics weren\u2019t allowed to live within ten miles of London or Westminster or to attend university; and he was beset with health problems that led to a visible hunchback and permanently stunted his height. Even so, Pope became a celebrated member of the British literary canon\u2014someone whose very image evoked intellectual achievement.<\/p>\n<p>Paintings and busts of Pope were commissioned for wealthy families and artistic friends\u2014they conferred status among men of letters. According to Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater and English at Yale, when Voltaire visited England in 1727, he marveled that he saw Pope\u2019s portrait in \u201ctwenty noblemen\u2019s houses.\u201d The placement of these busts was telling of the poet\u2019s reputation; he was displayed with such notable British intellectuals as Laurence Sterne and Isaac Newton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFame and Friendship\u201d assembled an intriguing array of these busts, made of stately marble or\u2014in the case of a petite, mass-produced work\u2014porcelain. At the center of the collection are eight busts of Pope by French \u00e9migr\u00e9 sculptor Louis Fran\u00e7ois Roubiliac, created between 1738 and 1760. Though they were made over the course of twenty-two years, they carry certain hallmarks: a telltale droop beneath Pope\u2019s eyes, a marked thinness in his cheeks, an inquisitive gaze, and a slender nose. In Roubiliac\u2019s skillful hands, the signs of Pope\u2019s infirmity are presented instead as characteristics befitting a poetic countenance, with all the sensitivity that poetry implies. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>More than two hundred years later, these distinctive sculptures captured the imagination of W. K. Wimsatt, a professor of English at Yale. In the early twentieth century, Wimsatt embarked on a twenty-five-year research project, hoping to gather all the Roubiliac busts of Pope. This meant writing Britain\u2019s oldest families and trekking out to county manors in search of the droopy-eyed poet\u2014an ambitious project, and seemingly a labor of love, as it was extracurricular to Wimsatt\u2019s main research interests. After all, it was Wimsatt who wrote, with Monroe Beardsley, one of the foundational texts of the New Criticism: \u201cThe Intentional Fallacy,\u201d a 1946 essay that called for critical objectivity, with a particular disregard of authorial intention or biography. And yet in 1961, a few decades after publishing \u201cThe Intentional Fallacy,\u201d Wimsatt proudly mounted an exhibition of six of Roubiliac\u2019s busts of Pope at the National Gallery of Art in London, later accompanied by a monograph, <em>The Portraits of Alexander Pope<\/em>. Wimsatt even named his son Alexander.<\/p>\n<p>How to reconcile this disparity between theory and practice? At a conference organized around the opening of \u201cFame and Friendship,\u201d Roach said,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you want to avoid ending up in poetic biography, impressionism, and relativism, then surely the last thing that you would think of undertaking is an exhaustive study of portraits of the poet, iconic or otherwise \u2026 I think Wimsatt himself acknowledges this paradox wittily when he breaks off his narration of all the trouble he went to [in order to find the busts] with the sentence: \u201cBut the writing of the book is a story that ought not to appear in the book itself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Roach pointed to a kind of loophole, a crucial space Wimsatt left for the author outside the realm of theory: though New Criticism rejects the author specifically in critical readings of text, he said, the study of the author as a <em>separate endeavor<\/em> is not only a worthy project, but a rewarding one.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not that\u2019s a satisfying argument, the exhibition speaks to the power of Wimsatt\u2019s impulse to collect\u2014the Pope busts, taken together, are a fascinating record of the poet and his time, and of the peculiarities attendant to his celebrity.<\/p>\n<p><em>Lilly Lampe is a writer and art critic based in Brooklyn. Her writing has appeared in\u00a0<\/em>Art in America<em>, <\/em>ArtAsiaPacific<em>, <\/em>Art Papers<em>, Artforum.com, and\u00a0<\/em>Modern Painters<em>, among others.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A professor\u2019s unlikely quest for busts of Alexander Pope. \u201cFame and Friendship: Pope, Roubiliac, and the Portrait Bust in Eighteen-Century Britain,\u201d recently on view at the Yale Center for British Art, tells a curious tale of Alexander Pope\u2019s legacy, focusing on the strange fervor that continues to surround busts and portraits of him. Pope, whose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":651,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2384],"tags":[4478,14033,14036,14037,8306,14034,14035],"class_list":["post-71719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look","tag-alexander-pope","tag-busts","tag-collectors","tag-louis-francois-roubiliac","tag-portraits","tag-sculptures","tag-w-k-wimsatt"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Professor\u2019s Strange Quest for Busts of Alexander Pope<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lilly Lampe on the strange fervor that continues to surround busts and portraits of Alexander Pope, most recently on view at the Yale Center for British Art.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/the-inquisitive-fallacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Inquisitive Fallacy by Lilly Lampe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 23, 2014 \u2013 A professor\u2019s unlikely quest for busts of Alexander Pope. \u201cFame and Friendship: Pope, Roubiliac, and the Portrait Bust in Eighteen-Century Britain,\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/the-inquisitive-fallacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-23T17:21:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-05-23T12:40:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lilly Lampe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lilly Lampe\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/the-inquisitive-fallacy\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/the-inquisitive-fallacy\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lilly Lampe\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/71234c2cacb781d67ed341912f9c3c2d\"},\"headline\":\"The Inquisitive Fallacy\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-23T17:21:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-05-23T12:40:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/23\/the-inquisitive-fallacy\/\"},\"wordCount\":818,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Alexander Pope\",\"busts\",\"collectors\",\"Louis Francois Roubiliac\",\"portraits\",\"sculptures\",\"W. 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