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Echoing Milton´s purpose in Paradise Lost, Pope says his aim in An Essay on Man is to "vindicate the ways of God to man"- to explain the existence of evil and explore man´s place in the universe. In a comprehensive introduction, Tom Jones describes the poem as an investigation of the fundamental question of how people should behave in a world they experience as chaotic, but which they suspect to be orderly from some higher point of view. The introduction provides a thorough discussion of the poem´s attitudes, themes, composition, context, and reception, and reassesses the work´s place in history. Extensive annotations to the text explain references and allusions.

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