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- To apply an excessive amount of force to achieve something minor, unimportant, or insignificant. The phrase appears in the rhetorical question, "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" The line is a quotation from Alexander Pope's poem "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot."
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Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" is a quotation from Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" of January 1735. It alludes to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tied to a Catherine wheel.
Sep 14, 2021 · to use unnecessary force in destroying something fragile—alludes to a wheel used as an instrument of torture—first occurs in An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734), by the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), who perhaps coined this phrase.
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? Yet let me flap [swat] this Bug with gilded wings, This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings; Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys, Yet Wit ne’er tastes, and Beauty ne’er enjoys, So well-bred Spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the Game they dare not bite. (lines 307–314)
Oct 22, 2015 · In this poem, he says, "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" Gentner & Wolff describe this phrase as encouraging the reader to, "imagine stretching a butterfly on a rack; the very difficulty of doing so invites the image of one so insubstantial as to be unworthy of torture".
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? A rhetorical question referring to an excessive amount of force that has been applied to achieve something minor, unimportant, or insignificant. The line is a quotation from Alexander Pope's poem "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot."
break a butterfly on a wheel. To apply an excessive amount of force to achieve something minor, unimportant, or insignificant. The phrase appears in the rhetorical question, "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" The line is a quotation from Alexander Pope's poem "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot."
"Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" is a quotation from Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" of January 1735. It alludes to " breaking on the wheel ", a form of torture in which victims had their long bone s broken by an iron bar while tied to a Catherine wheel . [1]
