i'm having a really hard time understanding Pope's An essay on man.. can anyone give a brief summary?

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with that particular work by Pope, but here are some online summaries that might help:

(Epistle 1): http://mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=126&m=880424&p=2&t=265943&w=1

http://www.deistnet.com/essayman.txt

(Epistle 2): http://mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=126&m=312639&f=1&t=129307

Hope that helps - good luck!