In his place, it is man's duty to strive to be good, even if he is doomed, because of his inherent frailty, to fail in his attempt. Pope was the leading poet of the Augustan Age, that portion of the Neoclassicist period extending from roughly 1700 to 1750. To a certain extent Neoclassicism represented a reaction against the optimistic, exuberant, and enthusiastic Renaissance view of man as a being fundamentally good and possessed of an infinite potential for spiritual and intellectual growth. Neoclassical theorists, by contrast, saw man as an imperfect being, inherently sinful, whose potential was limited. They replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination, on invention and experimentation, and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and reason, on restraint, on common sense, and on religious, political, economic and philosophical conservatism.
Poetic diction can also mean the sum of the favorite words used by a particular poet.
Pope had few poetical heirs of any consequence. His popularity gradually declined after his death in 1744, as his themes and his style went gradually out of fashion. In a sense his true heirs were those who reacted against him most strongly.