alexander pope biography

Biography of Alexander Pope, England's Most Quoted Poet

The satirist and poet who mocked the powerful

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Alexander Pope (May 21, 1688 – May 30, 1744) is one of the best-known and most-quoted poets in the English language. He specialized in satirical writing, which earned him some enemies but helped his witty language endure for centuries.

Fast Facts: Alexander Pope

• Occupation : Poet, satirist, writer
• Known For : Pope's poetry satirized English politics and society of the day, which earned him both admirers and enemies during a particularly turbulent era of British history. His writings have endured and made him one of the most quoted English writers, second only to Shakespeare.
• Born : May 21, 1688 in London, England
• Died : May 30, 1744 in Twickenham, Middlesex, England
• Parents: Alexander Pope and Edith Turner
• Notable Quote: "Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me."

Pope was born into a Catholic family in London. His father, also named Alexander, was a successful linen merchant, and his mother, Edith, was from a middle class family. Pope’s early life coincided with major upheaval in England; the same year he was born, William and Mary deposed James II in the Glorious Revolution . Because of the severe restrictions on the public lives of Catholics, Pope was educated at Catholic schools in London that were technically illegal, but quietly tolerated.

When Pope was twelve, his family moved away from London to a village in Berkshire, due to laws forbidding Catholics to live within ten miles of London and a corresponding wave of anti-Catholic sentiment and action. Pope was unable to continue his formal education while living in the countryside, but instead taught himself by reading texts by classical authors and poetry in several languages. Pope’s health also further isolated him; he suffered from a form of spinal tuberculosis at the age of twelve that stunted his growth and left him with a hunchback, chronic pain, and respiratory problems.

Despite these struggles, Pope was introduced to the literary establishment as a young man, largely thanks to the mentorship of the poet John Caryll, who took Pope under his wing. William Walsh, a lesser-known poet, helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals , and the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha, became lifelong friends.

First Publications

When Pope published his first work, The Pastorals , in 1709, it was met with almost instant acclaim. Two years later, he published An Essay on Criticism , which includes some of the earliest famous quotes from Pope’s writing ("To err is human, to forgive divine” and “Fools rush in”) and was also very well received.

Around this time, Pope befriended a group of contemporary writers: Jonathan Swift , Thomas Parnell, and John Arbuthnot. The writers formed a satirical quartet called the Scriblerus Club, targeting ignorance and pedantry alike through the character of “Martinus Scriblerus.” In 1712, Pope’s sharp satirical tongue turned to a real-life high society scandal with his most famous poem, The Rape of the Lock . The scandal revolved around an aristocrat who cut off a lock of hair from a beautiful woman without her permission, and Pope’s poem both satirized high society and mused upon consumerism and its relationship to human agency.

During the period of turmoil following Queen Anne’s death in 1714 and the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Pope remained publicly neutral, despite his Catholic upbringing. He also worked on a translation of Homer’s Iliad during this time. For a few years, he lived in his parents’ house in Chiswick, but in 1719, the profits from his translation of Homer enabled him to buy his own home, a villa in Twickenham. The villa, later known simply as “Pope’s villa,” became a tranquil place for Pope, where he created a garden and grotto. The grotto still stands, despite much of the rest of the villa having been destroyed or rebuilt.

Career as Satirist

As Pope’s career continued, his satirical writings became more and more pointed. The Dunciad , first published anonymously in 1728, would come to be considered a masterful piece of poetry but earned him a huge amount of hostility. The poem is a mock-heroic narrative that celebrates an imaginary goddess and her human agents who bring ruin to Great Britain. The allusions in the poem were aimed at many prominent and aristocratic figures of the day, as well as the Whig-led government.

Pope’s satire earned him so many enemies that, for a time, whenever he left the house, he brought his Great Dane with him and carried pistols, in case of a surprise attack by one of his targets or their supporters. In contrast, his An Essay on Man was more philosophical, reflecting on the natural order of the universe and suggesting that even the imperfections in the world are part of a rational order.

An Essay on Man differs from much of Pope’s work in its optimism. It argues that life functions according to a divine and rational order, even when things seem confusing from inside the eye of the storm, so to speak. He did, however, return to his satirical roots with Imitations of Horace , a satire of what Pope perceived to be the corruption and poor cultural taste during the reign of George II .

Final Years and Legacy

After 1738, Pope mostly stopped producing new work. He began working on additions and revisions to the Dunciad , publishing a new “book” in 1742 and a complete revision in 1743. In the new version, Pope more clearly satirized and criticized Horace Walpole, a Whig politician who was in power and who Pope blamed for many of the problems in British society.

By that point, however, Pope’s lifelong poor health was catching up to him. He had suffered from chronic pain, respiratory problems, a hunchback, frequent high fevers, and other problems since childhood. In 1744, his doctor reassured him that he was improving, but Pope only made a joke and accepted his fate. He received the last rites of the Catholic Church on May 29, 1744 and died at his villa, surrounded by his friends, the following day. He was buried at St. Mary’s Church in Twickenham.

In the decades following his death, Pope’s poetry went out of fashion for a time. While Lord Byron cited Pope’s poetry as an inspiration, others, such as William Wordsworth , criticized it for being too elegant or decadent. However, in the 20th century, interest in Pope’s poetry had a resurgence, and his reputation was elevated along with this new wave of interest. In these recent decades, his reputation has rebounded to the point of being considered one of the greatest English poets of all time, thanks to his thoughtful, ever-quotable writing.

• Butt, John Everett. “Alexander Pope.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Pope-English-author.
• Mack, Maynard. Alexander Pope: A Life . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
• Rogers, Pat. The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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Alexander Pope Biography

Born: May 21, 1688 London, England Died: May 30, 1744 London, England English poet

The English poet Alexander Pope is regarded as one of the finest poets and satirists (people who use wit or sarcasm to point out and devalue sin or silliness) of the Augustan (mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century English literature) period and one of the major influences on English literature in this time and after.

Early years

Alexander Pope was born on May 21, 1688, in London, England, to Alexander and Edith Pope. His Roman Catholic father was a linen merchant. His family moved out of London and settled in Binfield in Windsor Forest around 1700. Pope had little formal schooling. He educated himself through extensive studying and reading, especially poetry.

Although Pope was healthy and plump in his infancy, he became severely ill later in his childhood, which resulted in a slightly disfigured body—he never grew taller than 4 feet 6 inches. He suffered from curvature of the spine, which required him to wear a stiff canvas brace. He had constant headaches. His physical appearance, frequently ridiculed by his enemies, undoubtedly gave an edge to Pope's satire (humor aimed at human weaknesses), but he was always warmhearted and generous in his affection for his many friends.

Early poems

The Rape of the Lock (1712) immediately made Pope famous as a poet. It was a long humorous poem in the classical style (likeness to ancient Greek and Roman writing). Instead of treating the subject of heroic deeds, though, the poem was about the attempt of a young man to get a lock of hair from his beloved's head. It was based on a true event that happened to people he knew. Several other poems were published by 1717, the date of the first collected edition of Pope's works.

Translations of Homer

Pope also engaged in poetic imitations and translations. His Messiah (1712) was an imitation of Virgil (70–19 B.C.E. ). He also did a version of Geoffrey Chaucer's (1342–1400) poetry in the English of Pope's day. But it was Pope's versions of Homer (c. 700 B.C.E. ) that were his greatest achievement as a translator.

Pope undertook the translation of Homer's Iliad because he needed money. The interest earned from his father's annuities (money from investments) had dropped sharply. The translation occupied him until 1720. It was a great financial success, making Pope independent of the customary forms of literary patronage (support from wealthy people), and it was highly praised by critics.

From the time parts of Iliad began to appear, Pope became the victim of numerous pamphlet attacks on his person, politics, and religion. In 1716 an increased land tax on Roman Catholics forced the Popes to sell their place at Binfield and to settle at Chiswick. The next year Pope's father died, and in 1719 the poet's increased wealth enabled him to move with his mother to Twickenham.

From 1725 to 1726 Pope was engaged in a version of Odyssey. He worked with two other translators, William Broome and Elijah Fenton. They completed half of the translation between them. It was Pope's name, however, that sold the work, and he naturally received the lion's share (biggest part) of the profits.

Editorial work

Pope also undertook several editorial projects. Parnell's Poems (1721) was followed by an edition of the late Duke of Buckingham's Works (1723). Then, in 1725, Pope's six volumes on the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) were published. Pope's edits and explanatory notes were notoriously capricious (impulsive and not scholarly). His edition was attacked by Lewis Theobald in Shakespeare Restored (1726), a work that revealed a superior knowledge of editorial technique. This upset Pope, who then made Theobald the original hero of Dunciad.

The Dunciad

In 1726 and 1727 the writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was in England and a guest of Pope. Together they published three volumes of poetry. Renewed contact with Swift must have given a driving force to Pope's poem on "Dulness," which appeared as the three-book Dunciad (1728). Theobald was the prime dunce, and the next year the poem was enlarged by a burlesque (broad comedy) on commentators and textual critics.

Clearly Pope used Dunciad as personal satire to pay off many old scores. But it was also prompted by his distaste for that whole process by which worthless writers gained undeserved literary prominence (fame). The parody (comic imitation) of the classical epic (heroic poem) was accompanied by further mock-heroic elements, including the intervention of a goddess, the epic games of the second book, and the visit to the underworld and the vision of future "glories." Indeed, despite its devastating satire, Dunciad was essentially a phantasmagoric (created by the imagination) treatment by a great comic genius. In 1742 Pope published a fourth book to Dunciad separately, and his last published work was the four-volume Dunciad in 1743.

An Essay on Man

Pope's friendship with the former statesman Henry St. John Bolingbroke, who had settled a few miles from Twickenham, stimulated his interest in philosophy and led to the composition of An Essay on Man. Some ideas expressed in it were probably suggested by Bolingbroke. For example, the notion that earthly happiness is enough to justify the ways of God to man was consistent with Bolingbroke's thinking.

In essence, the Essay is not philosophy (the study of knowledge) but a poet's belief of unity despite differences, of an order embracing the whole multifaceted (many-sided) creation. Pope's sources were ideas that had a long history in Western thought. The most central of these was the doctrine of plenitude, which Pope expressed through the metaphors (a figure of speech in which words or phrases are used to find similarities in things that are not comparable) of a "chain" or "scale" of being. He also asserted that the discordant (not harmonious) parts of life are bound harmoniously together.

Later years

Pope wrote Imitations of Horace from 1733 to 1738. (Horace was a Roman poet who lived from 65 to 8 B.C.E. ) He also wrote many "epistles" (letters to friends) and defenses of his use of personal and political satire. As Pope grew older he became more ill. He described his life as a "long disease," and asthma increased his sufferings in his later years. At times during the last month of his life he became delirious. Pope died on May 30, 1744, and was buried in Twickenham Church.

Alexander Pope used language with genuine inventiveness. His qualities of imagination are seen in the originality with which he handled traditional forms, in his satiric vision of the contemporary world, and in his inspired use of classical models.

For More Information

Mack, Maynard. Alexander Pope: A Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

Quennell, Peter. Alexander Pope: The Education of Genius, 1688–1728. New York: Stein and Day, 1968.

Russo, John Paul. Alexander Pope; Tradition and Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.

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Alexander Pope

In the spring of 1688, Alexander Pope was born an only child to Alexander and Edith Pope. The elder Pope, a linen-draper and recent convert to Catholicism, soon moved his family from London to Binfield, Berkshire in the face of repressive, anti-Catholic legislation from Parliament. Described by his biographer, John Spence, as “a child of a particularly sweet temper,” and with a voice so melodious as to be nicknamed the “Little Nightingale,” the child Pope bears little resemblance to the irascible and outspoken moralist of the later poems. Barred from attending public school or university because of his religion, Pope was largely self-educated. He taught himself French, Italian, Latin, and Greek, and read widely, discovering Homer at the age of six.

At twelve, Pope composed his earliest extant work, Ode to Solitude ; the same year saw the onset of the debilitating bone deformity that would plague Pope until the end of his life. Originally attributed to the severity of his studies, the illness is now commonly accepted as Pott’s disease, a form of tuberculosis affecting the spine that stunted his growth—Pope’s height never exceeded four and a half feet—and rendered him hunchbacked, asthmatic, frail, and prone to violent headaches. His physical appearance would make him an easy target for his many literary enemies in later years, who would refer to the poet as a “hump-backed toad.”

Pope’s Pastorals , which he claimed to have written at sixteen, were published in Jacob Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies of 1710 and brought him swift recognition. Essay on Criticism , published anonymously the year after, established the heroic couplet as Pope’s principal measure and attracted the attention of Jonathan Swift and John Gay, who would become Pope’s lifelong friends and collaborators. Together they formed the Scriblerus Club, a congregation of writers endeavoring to satirize ignorance and poor taste through the invented figure of Martinus Scriblerus, who would serve as a precursor to the dunces in Pope's late masterpiece, the Dunciad .

In 1712, the The Rape of the Lock , Pope's best-known work and the one that secured his fame, was published. Its mundane subject—the true account of a squabble between two prominent Catholic families over the theft of a lock of hair—is transformed by Pope into a mock-heroic send-up of classical epic poetry .

Turning from satire to scholarship, Pope, in 1713, began work on his six-volume translation of Homer ’s Iliad . He arranged for the work to be available by subscription, with a single volume being released each year for six years, a model that garnered Pope enough money to be able to live off his work alone, one of the few English poets in history to have been able to do so.

In 1719, following the death of his father, Pope moved to an estate at Twickenham, where he would live for the remainder of his life. Here he constructed his famous grotto, and went on to translate the Odyssey —which he brought out under the same subscription model as the Iliad —and to compile a heavily-criticized edition of Shakespeare , in which Pope “corrected” the Bard’s meter and made several alterations to the text, while leaving corruptions in earlier editions intact.

Critic and scholar Lewis Theobald’s repudiation of Pope’s Shakespeare provided the catalyst for his Dunciad , a vicious, four-book satire in which Pope lampoons the witless critics and scholars of his day, presenting their “abuses of learning” as a mock- Aeneid , with the dunces in service to the goddess Dulness; Theobald served as its hero.

Though published anonymously, there was little question as to its authorship. Reaction to the Dunciad from its victims and sympathizers was more hostile than that of any of his previous works; Pope reportedly would not leave his house without two loaded pistols in his pocket. “I wonder he is not thrashed,” wrote William Broome, Pope’s former collaborator on the Odyssey who found himself lambasted in the Dunciad , “but his littleness is his protection; no man shoots a wren.”

Pope published Essay on Man in 1734, and the following year a scandal broke out when an apparently unauthorized and heavily sanitized edition of Pope’s letters was released by the notoriously reprobate publisher Edmund Curll (collections of correspondence were rare during the period). Unbeknownst to the public, Pope had edited his letters and delivered them to Curll in secret.

Pope’s output slowed after 1738 as his health, never good, began to fail. He revised and completed the Dunciad , this time substituting the famously inept Colley Cibber—at that time, the country’s poet laureate—for Theobald in the role of chief dunce. He began work on an epic in blank verse entitled Brutus , which he quickly abandoned; only a handful of lines survive. Alexander Pope died at Twickenham, surrounded by friends, on May 30, 1744.

Since his death, Pope has been in a constant state of reevaluation. His high artifice, strict prosody, and, at times, the sheer cruelty of his satire were an object of derision for the Romantic poets of the nineteenth century. It was not until the 1930s that his reputation was revived. Pope is now considered the dominant poetic voice of his century, a model of prosodic elegance, biting wit, and an enduring, demanding moral force.

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English History

Alexander Pope

Born: May 21, 1688, London, England Died: May 30, 1744 (aged 56), Middlesex, England Notable Works: The Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Criticism, His translation of Homer

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 — 30 May 1744) was an English poet, considered the foremost English poet of the early 18th century and a master of the heroic couplet. He is known for his writing style and satirical works, such as The Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock and An Essay on Criticism.

Pope is also remembered as the first full-time professional English writer, having supported himself largely on subscription fees for his popular translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and his edition of the works of William Shakespeare .

Pope was plagued with illness for most of his life, and only grew to 4 ft 6 in tall. He died in 1744 at the age of 56.

Alexander Pope – Early Life and Education

Alexander Pope was born on May 21, 1688 in London, to Alexander (1646–1717), a successful linen merchant in the Strand, and Edith (1643–1733), who was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York.

Both Alexander and Edith were catholics, which affected Pope’s education. The Test Acts were recently enacted, upholding the status of the established Church of England and banning Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, and holding public office on penalty of perpetual imprisonment.

Instead, Pope was taught to read by his aunt and then went to Twyford School in 1698/99. He then went on to two Roman Catholic schools in London which, even though they were illegal, were tolerated in some areas.

Pope suffered from numerous health problems from the age of twelve, including Pott disease, which is a form of tuberculosis that affects the spine, which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. He grew to a height of only 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in), and his tuberculosis caused other health problems, including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain.

Pope’s family moved to Popeswood, Binfield in Berkshire in 1700, to a small estate. The move was down to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing “Papists” from living within 10 miles (16 km) of London or Westminster.

Because of this, Pope’s formal education ended here, but he continued to educate himself at home, especially by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer , William Shakespeare and John Dryden . Pope also came into contact with figures from London literary society such as William Congreve, Samuel Garth and William Trumbull.

While living in Binfield, Pope made important friends, one of which was John Caryll. While he was twenty years older than Pope, he had acquaintances in the literary circle in London who he introduced Pope to. These included William Wycherley and William Walsh, as well as the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha, both of whom remained lifelong friends.

Pope’s ill health alienated him for much of his life and he never married, but it is speculated that Martha Blount was his lover.

Early Career

Pope first found fame in May 1709, when his Pastorals was published in the sixth part of bookseller Jacob Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies. Pope quickly followed up with An Essay on Criticism, published in May 1711, which was equally well received.

It was around this time that Pope made friends with Tory writers Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club. Its aim was to satirise ignorance and pedantry through the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus. Pope also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.

In March 1713, Pope’s poem Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim. He also wrote for The Guardian and The Spectator, and began the work of translating the Iliad, which took him about five years.

Between the years of 1716 and 1719, Pope lived in his parents’ house in Mawson Row, Chiswick. However, the money he made from translating Homer allowed him to move into a villa in Twickenham in 1719.

Best Known Poetry

Essay on criticism.

An Essay on Criticism was first published anonymously on 15 May 1711 and had taken Pope around three years to finish. It is written in a heroic couplet style, which, at the time, was a moderately new poetic form.

The poem is a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past.

The Rape of the Lock

The Rape of the Lock is Pope’s most famous poem and was first published in 1712. A revised version was published in 1714. It is a mock-epic poem that satirises a high-society quarrel between Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre, who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without her permission. However, the satirical style is toned down by the genuine and almost voyeuristic interest in the fashionable world of 18th century English society.

The Dunciad

The Dunciad was first published anonymously in Dublin in 1728, but it was clearly authored by Pope. It was published three different times between 1728 and 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Many of Pope’s targets were so enraged by The Dunciad that they threatened him.

Moral Essays

Pope published his “Epistle to Burlington” in 1731, which, on the subject of agriculture, was the first of four poems which would later be grouped under the title Moral Essays (1731–1735). In the first poem, Pope criticised the bad taste of the aristocrat “Timon” and Pope’s enemies claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons. This ended up harming Pope’s reputation.

An Essay On Man

An Essay On Man is a philosophical poem that was written and published between 1732 and 1734. It was written in heroic couplets and Pope intended it to be the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. He had planned on expanding it into a larger piece of work, but died before he could do so.

The poem was dedicated to Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke and is an effort to rationalise or rather “vindicate the ways of God to man” (l.16), a variation of John Milton’s claim in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, that he will “justify the ways of God to men” (1.26). It is comprised of four epistles and received great admiration throughout Europe when it was published.

Translations

Pope announced his plans to publish a translation of the lliad in 1713. He had been fascinated by Homer since childhood and intended for the work to be available by subscription, with one volume appearing every year over the course of six years.

Pope secured a deal with the publisher Bernard Lintot, which earned him two hundred guineas (£210) a volume, which was an extremely large sum at the time. The translations appeared between 1715 and 1720.

Thanks to the success of the Iliad, Bernard Lintot published Pope’s five-volume translation of Homer’s Odyssey in 1725 and 1726. Pope collaborated on this with William Broome and Elijah Fenton: Broome translated eight books (2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, 23), Fenton four (1, 4, 19, 20) and Pope the remaining 12. Broome also provided the annotations.

Shakespeare

Pope was employed by publisher Jacob Tonson to produce a new edition of Shakespeare in 1725. This edition silently regularised Shakespeare’s metre and rewrote his verse in a number of places. Pope also removed about 1,560 lines of Shakespearean material, arguing that some appealed to him more than others. In 1728, the second edition of Pope’s Shakespeare appeared, but few alterations had been made.

In 1726, Lewis Theobald, who was a lawyer, poet and pantomime-deviser, published a pamphlet called Shakespeare Restored, which catalogued the errors in Pope’s work and suggested a number of revisions to the text. This enraged Pope, and Theobald was the main target of Pope’s poem The Dunciad.

Writing Style

Pope largely wrote his poetry in heroic couplets, which, at the time, was a fairly new poetic form. His metrical skill earned him his fame, and allowed Pope to join a wider circle of authors in London. Pope also liked to write in a satirical manner, writing mock-heroic epics. These poems evoke heroism and include sylphs and other Romanesque themes, which being successful in their effort to satirise high society in 18th-century England. Pope’s poems were often misread as supportive of what he was criticising.

Later Works and Years

Following An Essay On Man, Pope wrote Imitations of Horace (1733–38), which were written in the popular Augustan form of the “imitation” of a classical poet. He also added an original poem, Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot, as an introduction to the Imitations. It reviews his own literary career and includes the famous portraits of Lord Hervey (“Sporus”), Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull (“Balbus”) and Addison (“Atticus”).

In 1738, Pope wrote the Universal Prayer, after which he wrote little. He toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called Brutus, but only the opening lines survive. His major work in these years was revising and expanding his masterpiece The Dunciad. Book Four appeared in 1742 and a complete revision of the whole poem appeared the following year.

Pope’s health, which had never been good, began to decline further in 1744. He died in his villa surrounded by friends on 30 May 1744, about eleven o’clock at night. On the previous day, Pope had called for a priest and received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was buried in the nave of St Mary’s Church, Twickenham.

Alexander Pope – Historical Significance

Pope enjoyed some fame while alive, and his works have been praised and studied ever since. While the Romantic movement that rose to prominence in early 19th century England was more unsure of his work, the 20th century brought further approval of his writings.

Pope is remembered for his interesting writing style, using heroic couplets in a time where they were not widely used, and for using satire to criticise the society he was living in that he did not fully accept.

Major works

• 1709: Pastorals
• 1711: An Essay on Criticism
• 1712: Messiah (from the Book of Isaiah, and later translated into Latin by Samuel Johnson)
• 1712: The Rape of the Lock (enlarged in 1714)
• 1713: Windsor Forest
• 1715: The Temple of Fame: A Vision
• 1715–1720: Translation of the Iliad
• 1717: Eloisa to Abelard
• 1717: Three Hours After Marriage, with others
• 1717: Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
• 1723–1725: The Works of Shakespear, in Six Volumes
• 1725–1726: Translation of the Odyssey
• 1727: Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry
• 1728: The Dunciad
• 1733–1734: Essay on Man
• 1735: The Prologue to the Satires

Other works

• 1700: Ode on Solitude
• 1713: Ode for Musick
• 1717: The Court Ballad
• 1731: An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington
• 1733: The Impertinent, or A Visit to the Court
• 1736: Bounce to Fop
• 1737: The First Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace
• 1738: The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace

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Alexander Pope by Tom Jones LAST REVIEWED: 27 September 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 27 September 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846719-0047

Alexander Pope (b. 21 May 1688–d. 30 May 1744) is the preeminent English poet of the early 18th century. He was commercially and critically successful in his time, establishing his fortune by means of a translation of Homer to which subscriptions were sold. He won the friendship and approval of many socially and intellectually influential people, such as Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, and William Warburton, through his writing. His technical mastery of the heroic couplet, one of the main modes of English verse composition, has always attracted attention—derisory from the Romantics and Victorians, more admiring from critics of the 18th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Pope’s poetry channels the traditions of earlier English and classical writing, transforming and often subverting or ironizing those traditions, as in his major mock-epic works The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad . Pope’s writing is controversial, touching on subjects such as gender identity, political commitment, moral attitudes, and the nature of being human. Such controversial interests make his poetry gripping and have also made him the center of charged debates concerning the politics of literary study. Pope was active as a translator, editor, and prose writer, retaining a close interest in the physical existence of his work throughout the publication process, and contributing to the development of copyright law and the modern image of the author. Pope’s poetry invites comparison with the visual arts, and he himself was often depicted in images that sometimes made evident his short stature and the double curvature of his spine from Pott’s disease. These features marked him out for attack throughout his life: he has also become a figure in the study of disability in literature, as he has been for other types of marginality (Catholicism, political opposition, for example). The range of Pope’s work, from social comedy to philosophical epistle to familiar letter, and the range of responses to that work guarantee his continuing interest to undergraduate, scholarly, and popular audiences alike.

There are several major monuments in the modern editing of Pope’s works. The first point of reference for scholars of Pope remains Butt 1939–1969 , but some of the inconveniences of this edition are being addressed by Rumbold 2007 and Rumbold’s colleagues on the Longman edition. Pope 2016 is not a critical edition, but makes extensive reference to the manuscripts of An Essay on Man and offers a contextual introduction and notes. Ault and Cowler 1936–1986 provides the most complete 20th-century edition of Pope’s prose. Hammond 1987 offers an overview of the correspondence as well as selections from the other prose works; this work is also more easily obtained and is probably more accessible for undergraduates. Erskine-Hill 2000 usefully updates the huge labors of Sherburn 1956 , making use of many of the documents whose gradual discovery is noted in several of the items in Letters . Shankman 1996 did a great service in making Pope’s Iliad widely available in an affordable paperback.

Ault, Norman, and Rosemary Cowler, eds. The Prose Works of Alexander Pope . 2 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1936–1986.

Pope’s miscellaneous essays in periodical publications, his prefaces to his own works (his translation of Homer, his “Pastorals”), his pamphlet attacks on Edmund Curll, the majestic parody of a treatise on poetics, Peri Bathous: Or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry , and other prose works are collected here.

Butt, John, ed. The Poems of Alexander Pope . 11 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1939–1969.

The standard edition of the poems of Pope, and his translation of Homer, with introductions and annotations by prominent scholars of Pope. There are one or two minor problems with the edition, such as the lack of a consistent policy on typography and a complex system of cross-referencing for Pope’s footnotes to The Dunciad .

Erskine-Hill, Howard, ed. Alexander Pope: Selected Letters . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Erskine-Hill prints thirteen of the letters discovered since 1956 and also prints in sequence letters that Pope revised and redesignated in his published correspondence. An introduction characterizes Pope as a writer of letters, and the value of his letters for literary scholars and historians.

Hammond, Paul, ed. Selected Prose of Alexander Pope . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Presents selections from Pope’s correspondence as well as his other prose works. The introduction focuses on Pope’s self-image.

Pope, Alexander. An Essay on Man . Edited by Tom Jones. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.

The introduction characterizes Pope’s philosophical attitude, and offers a contextual account of the argument of each Epistle, as well as a sketch of the reception of the poem up to the 20th century.

Rumbold, Valerie, ed. The Poems of Alexander Pope . Vol. 3, The Dunciad (1728) and The Dunciad Variorum (1729) . Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2007.

Only Valerie Rumbold’s edition of the Dunciads of 1728 and 1729 is so far available, but this edition could supersede the Twickenham as a text of Pope’s nontranslated work.

Shankman, Stephen, ed. The Iliad of Homer . Translated by Alexander Pope. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1996.

Reproducing Pope’s translation of and annotations to Homer, this makes one of the most intensely discussed translations of the 18th century available in paperback.

Sherburn, George, ed. The Correspondence of Alexander Pope . 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

The standard edition of Pope’s correspondence, including many letters between other members of Pope’s circle. Annotations provide biographical and historical context, as well as detailing the often complex provenance of letters, and Pope’s struggle to bring them into print. The index has been said to be incomplete.

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British Literature Wiki

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) was an English poet and satirist during the Restoration (“Alexander Pope,” Jokinen). He was born in London on May 21, 1688 into a Roman Catholic family (Jokinen). From childhood, Pope suffered from a spinal deformity that left him disabled and prevented him from ever growing past the height of 4’6″ (“Alexander Pope,” Jokinen). Pope’s formal education was sadly limited because of his religious views (Jokinen). During the Restoration Catholics were persecuted and Pope’s religion prevented him from attending public schools (Jokinen). Despite these limitations, he learned some Latin and Greek from various tutors and became an avid reader and aspired to become a great poet (“Alexander Pope,” Jokinen). He had the advantage of becoming part of a literary subculture among other Roman Catholics living near him (Jonkinen). He was introduced to this circle by Sir William Trumbull and through him he was introduced to important members of the literary community and was accepted among them as a prodigy by age 17 (Jokinen). Pope’s literary career took off when he published his Pastorals in 1709 because they were his first works that were noticed by the public (“Alexander Pope”). Some of his subsequent works include, “ An Essay on Criticism ” (1711), “ The Rape of the Lock ” (1712, 1714) and “ An Essay on Man ” (1733) (“Alexander Pope,” Jokinen). He died at the age of 56 on May 30, 1744 in home at Twickenham (“Alexander Pope,” Jokinen).

Alexander Pope’s Works

Early Works Alexander Pope’s literary career began in 1704 and he first attracted public attention in 1709 with his Pastorals (“Alexander Pope”). By this time, Pope was already at work on his more ambitious Essay on Criticism (1711) designed to create a rebirth of the contemporary literary scene (“Alexander Pope”). His next work, The Rape of the Lock (1712) secured his reputation as a poet (“Alexander Pope”). By 1717, an edition of Pope’s collected works was published (“Alexander Pope”).

Translations of Homer Pope’s translations of Homer (c. 700 B.C.E. ) were his greatest achievements as a translator (Jokinen). “Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad was published in six volumes from 1715 to 1720; a translation of the Odyssey followed (1725-1726)” (“Alexander Pope”). When he translated the Odyssey , he worked with two other translators, William Broome and Elijah Fenton who completed half of the translation (Jokinen). Pope’s profit from his translations of Homer was o ver £8000 (more money than any English author before him had ever made) (Jokinen).

Editorial work Pope also undertook several editorial projects. One of which was Parnell’s Poems (Jokinen). In 1725, Pope published the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) (Jokinen).

A short video about Alexander Pope

(Time 5:07)

Links to e-texts of some of Pope’s works

Pastorals (1709) The Rape of the Lock (1712, 1714) Essay on Man (1733) An Essay on Criticism (1711) The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: Volume One The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: Volume Two The Iliad of Homer Translated by Alexander Pope (1715-1720) The Odyssey of Homer Translated by Alexander Pope (1725-1726)

Works Cited

“Alexander Pope at Old Poetry.” www.oldpoetry.com , Old Poetry, n.d. Web. 20 May 2010. Dahl, Michael. Alexander Pope . 1727. National Portrait Gallery, London. Web. 20 May 2010. Douglass, Sara. “Alexander Pope’s House at Twickenham.” www.oldlondonmaps.com , Old London Maps, 2006. Web. 20 May 2010. Jervas, Charles. Alexander Pope . c. 1713. National Portrait Gallery, London. Web. 22 May 2006. Jokinen, Anniina. “Life of Alexander Pope.” www.luminarium.org , Luminarium, 2006. Web. 20 May 2010. MacFarlaine, Ian. “Alexander Pope.” www.findagrave.com , Find A Grave, 2002. Web. 20 May 2010. Manis, Jim. English Department . Pennsylvania State University. 11 January 2010. Web. 20 May 2010. < http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/ > Pope, Alexander. “ Pastorals.” www.humanitiesweb.org , Humanities Web, n.d. Web. 20 May 2010. Richardson, Jonathan. Alexander Pope and His Dog, Bounce . 1718. National Portrait Gallery, London. Web. 20 May 2010.

Image References

Pope: top left (Dahl) Pope: top center (Richardson) Pope: top right (Jervas)

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5.3: Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

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Learning Objectives

• Define satire and apply the definition to Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock.”
• Trace the historical events that led to the writing of “The Rape of the Lock.”
• Evaluate Pope’s use of satire in “The Rape of the Lock.”

After the Great Fire of London aroused anti-Catholic feeling that had simmered since the reign of James II, Parliament passed the first of two Test Acts, laws that banned Roman Catholics and nonconformists (Protestants not members of the Church of England, such as Puritans) from holding public office, serving in the military, attending universities, or essentially having any part in public life. Born into a Roman Catholic family,  Alexander Pope’s  education was limited to occasional tutoring from priests and his own regimen of study.  Pope  suffered from what many experts now believe to be tuberculosis of the bone, resulting in a deformity in his back and stunted growth. Both his religion and his physical disabilities barred him from the kind of participation in court life that resulted in patronage that other poets enjoyed. With his family’s financial security from his father’s business,  Pope  was able to devote enough time to his writing, translating, and editing to begin earning a comfortable living. He soon established himself as one of the prominent neoclassic writers.

Portrait by Jean-Baptiste van Loo.

• “ The Rape of the Lock .”  Electronic Classics Series . Jim Manis, Senior Faculty Editor. Pennsylvania State University.
• “ The Rape of the Lock .” S. Constantine. University of Massachusetts. with annotations.
• “ The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems by Alexander Pope .”  Project Gutenberg .
• “ The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope .” Edited by Jack Lynch. Rutgers University.
• “ Selected Poetry of Alexander Pope .”  Representative Poetry Online . University of Toronto.

“The Rape of the Lock”

Like Swift, Alexander Pope chose  satire  as his method for addressing and possibly correcting a difficult situation. Unlike Swift, Pope addresses  a personal situation .

Within the society of aristocratic Roman Catholic families, a young gentleman, Lord Petre, furtively cut a lock of hair from a beautiful young woman he was courting, Arabella Fermor. Arabella and her family were incensed at the “assault” and refused to associate with Lord Petre and his family, causing a rift within the social circle of Catholic families. A mutual friend John Caryll suggested that Pope write a humorous poem that might encourage the families to take the situation less seriously and to reconcile.

Heroic Couplet

A  heroic couplet  is two lines of poetry in iambic pentameter that rhyme. Neoclassical writers favored this structured, symmetrical verse form. Pope uses the highly complex  closed heroic couplet , a rigidly structured verse form consisting of two lines, each iambic pentameter, which rhyme and which form a complete thought.

These two lines in  Figure 5.4  are from Canto 3, lines 13–14. Note that each line is iambic pentameter, the two lines rhyme, and the semi-colon (end punctuation) indicates a complete thought.

“The Rape of the Lock” is a  mock epic , a poem which uses the characteristics and conventions of an epic but for a humorous and satirical purpose rather than a serious purpose. Even the title ironically suggests a serious crime when the offense is actually cutting a lock of hair.

• An epic states the  theme  at the beginning of the poem. The first two lines of Canto 1 follow the convention: “What dire offense from amorous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things, / I sing.…” The word  trivial  epitomizes the theme, and the theme in turn leads to the choice of form, the mock epic which treats a trivial subject as if it were of epic importance. In contrast to the epic  Paradise Lost , in which the theme is nothing less than the creation and fall of the human race, Pope’s mock epic highlights human superficiality and vanity.
• An epic invokes a  muse : Pope’s muse is not a Greek god or the Holy Spirit, Milton’s muse; his muse is another human, John Caryll who asked him to write the poem.
• The  supernatural forces  are not God, angels, and demons of  Paradise Lost  but the sylphs whose duties are to guard Belinda’s hair and jewelry.
• The  epic battles  are reduced to card games. The preparation for battle takes place at Belinda’s dressing table and is presented in diction suggestive of religious rites (see Canto 1 lines 121–148). The Baron also prepares for battle by praying at his altar to love (see Canto 2 lines 35–46).
• The valiant  feats of courage  become clipping a lock of hair, threatening the Baron with a hairpin, and making him sneeze with a pinch of snuff.

Another technique Pope employs to convey his satirical point is the literary device called  zeugma , the use of a word to apply to two disparate situations. For example, Canto 2, lines 105–110 present serious tragedies the sylphs fear might happen to Belinda juxtaposed with trivial possibilities:

Sidebar 5.2.

Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,

Or some frail china jar receive a flaw,

Or stain her honor, or her new brocade

Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade.…

Belinda’s losing her virtue becomes the equivalent of an ornamental jar being cracked. Staining her honor becomes the equivalent of staining her dress. The effect is to emphasize the triviality of aristocratic values, a world in which marring one’s appearance by losing a single lock of hair is considered as consequential as a rape.

Key Takeaways

• Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” exemplifies Horatian satire.
• “The Rape of the Lock” is a mock epic.
• “The Rape of the Lock” is written in closed heroic couplets, a verse form that embodies the structure and symmetry admired by neoclassicists.
• Review the list of epic characteristics and conventions in the information about Milton’s  Paradise Lost . In addition to the examples given, identify instances in “The Rape of the Lock” in which Pope trivializes epic conventions to create a mock epic.
• Describe Belinda and the Baron in Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock.”
• What are the objects of satire in “The Rape of the Lock”?
• In what ways could Pope’s work be characterized as Horatian satire in contrast with Swift’s Juvenalian satire?
• What parallels do you find in Milton’s epic  Paradise Lost  and Pope’s mock epic?
• Pope writes about aristocratic society in “The Rape of the Lock.” How would you compare/contrast the families involved in this situation with the aristocratic British and Irish people Swift alludes to in “A Modest Proposal”?
• “ Alexander Pope (1688–1744) .” Anniina Jokinen.  Luminarium . rpt from  Encyclopedia Britannica , 11th Ed., Vol. XXII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910. 87.
• “ Alexander Pope .” Academy of American Poets.  Poets.org .
• “ Alexander Pope .” The Twickenham Museum.

Background Information

• “ Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock: An Introduction .” David Cody. Hartwick College. The Victorian Web.
• “ The Story Behind the Poem .”  The Rape of the Lock Homepage . S. Constantine. University of Massachusetts.
• “ The Heroic Couplet: Its Rhyme and Reason .” J. Paul Hunter. University of Chicago. Lecture presented at the  National Humanities Center .
• “ Heroic Couplet .”  The UVic Writer’s Guide . Department of English. University of Victoria.
• “ Heroic Couplets .” Jack Lynch.  Glossary of Literary and Rhetorical Terms . Rutgers University.
• “ Heroic Couplets .” Erik Simpson.  Connections: A Hypertext Resource for Literature . Grinnell College.
• “ High Burlesque: Mock Epic (Mock Heroic); Parody .”  The UVic Writer’s Guide . Department of English. University of Victoria.
• “ Zeugma .”  The UVic Writer’s Guide . Department of English. University of Victoria.
• “ Zeugma .”  Literary Terms and Definitions . Dr. L. Kip Wheeler. Carson-Newman College.

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“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” “Damn with faint praise.” “Hope springs eternal.” Alexander Pope’s mastery of the couplet and epigram survives in pithy quotation to this day, though many would be hard pressed to attribute an author to those sparkling phrases. The BBC’s other literary offering this week is Lady Boss (October 15), a documentary about bonkbuster novelist Jackie Collins. Wordplay around “rich” and “bitch” isn’t quite what Pope meant by “what oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed.”

“Eternal sunlight of the spotless mind” titled a weird Kate Winslet film, while “who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” gave the Times a poignant headline for Mick Jagger’s Sixties drug bust. John Cleese is a fan (“Pope was a very straight guy”), along with writer and academic Philip Hensher. A disabled man and the victim of life-long discrimination as a Catholic, Pope (1688-1744) is an apt subject for today’s inclusionary culture, however alien and distant his bewigged era might appear. This programme, combining dramatised scenes and critical discussion, even makes a case for Pope as a feminist and animal rights advocate. A darker side is merely hinted at.

Pope was celebrated and feared for his brilliant intellect: “a huge brain”, in the words of his biographer Dr Felicity Rosslyn, and a former child prodigy comparable to Mozart. Given that his religion barred him from the official posts which his genius merited, the young Pope had few employment options. After translating The Iliad into rhyming couplets, he became his own publisher, a masterstroke that netted him a fortune when the poem became a bestseller.

Together with follow-up The Odyssey , it enabled him to create a miniature Palladian estate at Twickenham, complete with his famous grotto. It became a magnet for celebrities and wits; for the sociable, clubbable Pope, “it’s people being with people that generates culture,” in Hensher’s words.

Played by Simon Callow in a squashy velvet cap and trailing robe covering a hunchback, Pope is a gentle figure rather than the master of vicious invective. There’s no mention of the coded homophobia of his attack on Lord Hervey (“this bug with gilded wings / This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings”), although Hensher does chortle: “Oh, there’s some vile stuff in Pope.”

There’s a deliciously prickly exchange with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (Harriet Walter), who wanted gardening advice. Shubham Saraf wafts around as ardent fan Lord Byron, for some reason wearing a waist-length necklace under his long coat, and Jeff Rawle is Dr Johnson in a huge wig. “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” cautioned Pope, but this light sip at the Pierian spring is pretty refreshing.

On BBC4 from October 10 at 8.10pm

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Who was Alexander Pope?

Alexander Pope was an 18th century English poet and satirist was born on 21 May 1688 in a Roman Catholic family to Alexander Pope Senior, a linen merchant of Plough Court, and Edith.

Pope’s education was vastly affected by a series of English penal laws. These laws pressed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists. These acts strengthened the status of the orthodox church of England. It banned Catholics from engaging in any educational, governmental or other activities.

Here are some facts about Alexander Pope

Early life of pope.

Pope was taught to read by his aunt, Christiana, the wife of the famous miniature painter Samuel Cooper. He went to Twyford School in 1698. He then went on to study in two Roman Catholic schools.

In 1700, a 12-year-old Pope moved with his family to an estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire. The strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute prevented Papists from living in or near London or Westminster.

His formal education was complete by this time. He read the works of famous classical writers such as Horace, Juvenal, Homer and Virgil and also read English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden. As a linguist, Pope read works by many English, French, Latin, Italian and Greek poets.

As a child, Pope suffered numerous health problems. He got Pott’s disease which deformed his body and stunted his growth. It left him a hunchback. This disease further caused respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain.

One of his friends was John Caryll, the future dedicatee of ‘The Rape of the Lock’. He introduced Pope to the playwright William Wycherley and the poet William Walsh. They helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals.

Alexander Pope Contribution

Around 1705, five years later, Pope came in contact with many famous writers and poets from the London literary society such as William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth and many more. In 1709, Pope published his work, The Pastorals, in Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies.

Again, in May 1711 he published An Essay on Criticism, which, too, was well-received. The poem answered the question of whether poetry should be natural or written according to the rules inherited from the classical past.

He made friends with Jonathan Swift , Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, the Tory writer. Together they formed the satirical ‘Scriblerus Club’. The club was to satirised ignorance and pedantry with the aid of the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus.

In 1712, Pope published another of his famous poems, a mock-epic, The Rape of the Lock. It mocks the beau-monde of 18th-century England.

In March 1713, Pope published Windsor Forest. He described the countryside around his house in Binfield, Berkshire which was close to the Royal Windsor Forest. It, too, published to great acclaim.

He became friends with Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, the Whig writers. His friendship with Joseph Addison led to the contribution of Pope in his play, Cato. He even made significant contributions in the writing of The Guardian and The Spectator. He started translating the Iliad the publication for which began in 1715 and ended in 1720.

Between 1716 and 1719 Pope lived in his parent’s house in Mawson Row, Chiswick. It is now the Mawson Arms, commemorating him with a blue plaque. In 1719 he moved to a villa at Twickenham. It was there where he created his now famous grotto and gardens.

Pope published another one of his famous poems, An Essay on Man, written in heroic couplets between 1732 and 1734. He intended to make it into a larger work; however, he did not live to complete it.

Famous Quotes

List of works, alexander pope as a poet, here is the list of alexander pope poems.

An Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope an essay on man Argus Couplets on Wit Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady Eloisa to Abelard Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog… EPISTLE II: TO A LADY (Of the Characters of Women ) Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV, To Richard Boyle Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot Essay on Man Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea Lines on Curll Ode on Solitude On a Certain Lady at Court Sound and Sense Summer The Dunciad: Book IV The Dying Christian to His Soul The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) The Rape of the Lock The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1 The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4 The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5 The Riddle of the World Two Or Three: A Recipe To Make A Cuckold Universal Prayer You Know Where You Did Despise

Alexander Pope eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

These lines are from the poem Eloisa to Abelard. Pope’s lines used in the movie are powerful because they are a hopeless fantasy. The movie goes further in its fantasy world where your memories apparently can successfully be erased, they still exist in others to haunt you; there’s simply no escaping them.

Odyssey of Homer

He translated Odyssey by Homer. Read the text of the book here .

Hope springs eternal

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” ― Alexander Pope,  An Essay on Man

Counterpart

Counterpart is the Starz Original Series. Alexander Pope is the name of a mysterious Dimension Two character who appeared in it.

Poem Windsor forest

Alexander Pope’s Windsor Forest in PDF format

Alexander Pope Solitude

‘Solitude’ is the best stage of life, although many people relate it with loneliness. But it not about being lonely but it is about being happy in the company of oneself. In this poem, Pope says that the solitude is the blessed thing of life.

The poem talks about the freedom of responsibility from society and social norms. Pope talks about the joy of a person who is in his native land and not bounded or forced with the rules. The person should not be bound by the laws of society and be answerable the community.

Poetry – the quiet life

“The Quiet Life” poem by Alexander Pope describes a man truly content with his place in the world. It describes how this man is “content to breathe his native air,” suggesting that he has succeeded in fulfilling all of his aspirations.

Read this beautiful poem The Quiet Life .

Alexander Pope heroic couplets

Alexander pope satire.

Pope used poetry as a great instrument of moral improvement. His belief was that satire was his most effective weapon to destroy corrupt customs and to expose the wicked. Pope used Horatian  satire in his famous epic poem, The Rape of the Lock. Pope’s opinion was satire  “heals with morals what it hurts with wit”.

Between 1733 and 1738, he wrote The Imitations of Horace. The model of Horace to satirised life under George II. As an introduction to the “Imitations”, he added an original poem, An Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot and reflected his literary career. It included the famous portraits of Lord Hervey, Sporus, and Addison, Atticus.

After 1738, Pope started to write less. In the later years, he revised and expanded his masterpiece The Dunciad. His health began to deteriorate gradually.

On 29 May 1744, Pope had called for a priest for the Last Rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The next day, on 30 May 1744, the morning of his death, when his physician told him that his health was up, Pope replied, “Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms”. He died at 11 in the night. He lies in the nave of St Mary’s Church, Twickenham.

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