pt. I. The poet in his setting. 1. Alexander Pope, the man and his life

2. The urban and rural setting

3. The kindred arts

4. Augustan literary tenets

5. Pope's beliefs

pt. II. Critical survey. The closed heroic couplet ; January and May, lines 367-391 ; Windsor-Forest, lines 1-42 ; The rape of the lock, canto I, lines 121-148 ; Eloisa to Abelard, lines 207-248 ; An epistle to Burlington, lines 127-176 ; An essay on man, lines 1-18 ; Epilogue to the satires : dialogue II, lines 1-41 ; The Dunciad, book IV, lines 605-656

pt. III. Reference section. Glossary of technical terms ; Gazetteer of eighteenth-century London place names ; Short biographies ; Chronological table ; Further reading.