Alexander Pope (May 22, 1688 – May 30, 1744) is considered one of the greatest England poets of the eighteenth century. Born to a Catholic family in 1688, Pope was educated mostly at home, in part due to penal law in force at the time upholding the status of the state church Church of England. From early childhood he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis affecting the vertebral column) which deformed his body and stunted his growth. He never grew beyond 1.37m (4ft 6in). Although he had been writing poetry since the age of 12, his first major contribution to the literary world is considered to be ''An Essay on Criticism,'' which was published in 1711 when he was 23. This was followed by ''The Rape of the Lock'' (1712, revised 1714), his most popular poem; ''Eloisa to Abelard'' and ''Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady'' (1717); and several shorter works, of which perhaps the best are the epistles to Martha Blount. From 1715 to 1720, he worked on a translation of Homer's Iliad. Encouraged by the very favourable reception of this translation, Pope translated the Odyssey (1725-1726) with William Broome and Elijah Fenton. The commercial success of his translations made Pope the first English poet who could live off the sales of his work alone, "indebted to no prince or peer alive," as he put it. In this period Pope also brought out an edition of Shakespeare, which silently "regularised" his metre and rewrote his verse in several places. Lewis Theobald and other scholars attacked Pope's edition, incurring Pope's wrath and inspiring the first version of his satire ''The Dunciad'' (1728), the first of the moral and satiric poems of his last period. His other major poems of this period were ''Moral Essays'' (1731-1735), ''Imitations of Horace'' (1733-1738), the ''Epistle to Arbuthnot'' (1735), the ''Essay on Man'' (1734), and an expanded edition of the ''Dunciad'' (1742), in which Colley Cibber took Theobald's place as the 'hero'. Pope directly addressed the major religious, political and intellectual problems of his time. He developed the heroic couplet beyond the achievement of any previous poet, and major poets after him used it less than those before, as he had decreased its usefulness for them. Pope also wrote the famous epitaph for Sir Isaac Newton: :"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; :God said 'Let Newton be' and all was light." to which J._C._Squire later added the couplet :"It did not last: the devil, shouting 'Ho. :Let Albert_Einstein be' restored the status quo." Pope had a friend and ally in Jonathan Swift. In the 1720s, he formed the Scriblerus Club with Swift and other friends including John Gay. [[Image:Pope-dying.png|thumb|left|240px|The death of Alexander Pope from ''Museus,'' a threnody by William Mason. Diana holds the dying Pope, and John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Geoffrey Chaucer prepare to welcome him to heaven.]] Pope's works were once considered part of the mental furniture of the well-educated person. One edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations includes no less than 212 quotations from Pope. Some, familiar even to those who may not know their source, are "A little learning is a dang'rous thing" (from the ''Essay on Criticism''); "To err is human, to forgive, divine" (''ibid.''); "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread" (''ibid''); and "The proper study of mankind is man" (''Essay on Man''). Pope's reputation declined precipitously in the 19th century, but has recovered substantially since then. Some poems, such as ''The Rape of the Lock'', the moral essays, the imitations of Horace, and several epistles, are regarded as highly now as they have ever been, though others, such as the ''Essay on Man'', have not endured very well, and the merits of two of the most important works, the ''Dunciad'' and the translation of the ''Iliad'', are still disputed. The 19th century considered his diction artificial, his versification too regular, and his satires insufficiently humane. The third charge has been disputed by various 20th century critics including William Empson, and the first does not apply at all to his best work. That Pope was constrained by the demands of "acceptable" diction and prosody is undeniable, but Pope's example shows that great poetry could be written with these constraints. ==Works== * ''Pastorals'' * ''Eloisa to Abelard'' * ''The Rape of the Lock'' * ''Windsor Forest'' * ''The Prologue to the Satires'' (see ''Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot'') * ''An Essay on Criticism'' * ''Essay on Man'' * ''The Dunciad'' ==External links== * * Various biographies [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apope.htm], [http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~sconstan/popebio.html], [http://www.island-of-freedom.com/POPE.HTM] * A copy of "An Essay on Criticism", [http://eserver.org/poetry/essay-on-criticism.html] * Project Gutenberg e-text of [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2428 An Essay On Man] 1688 births 1744 deaths English poets Autodidacts Neoclassicism
I changed this: "He was the last major poet to write in traditional rhyming couplets; he developed the heroic couplet beyond that of any previous poet, and essentially exhausted its usefulness for later poets." There's room for disagreement about who's major, but I'd count Keats (''Lamia'') and Frost ("The Bear","A Considerable Speck", "The Egg and the Machine", "The Onset", "The Tuft of Flowers"). I don't know whether the current version is true. Does anyone have any information on use of the heroic couplet before and after Pope? —User:JerryFriedman 20:08, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
140.180.165.138, thanks for your valuable additions today and a happy new year! Could you please try to formulate the opening sentence more neutrally and encyclopedically, though? Or attribute it, or something. I've provisionally tamed the POV (what about Blake?), but I'm sure you can do it better.--User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 05:16, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just a small change to point up the fact that Cibber replaced Theobald as the 'hero' of the Dunciad rather than simply being "added to the list of dunces". aldiboronti 17:48, 3 Jan 2005
*Yep. Anybody wants to see fuller accounts of this, please compare newly refurbished articles The Dunciad and Colley Cibber. Thanks, aldiboronti!--User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 19:14, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The notion that Pope was "educated mostly outside "normal" schools and colleges as a result of the penal laws that were in force at the time to uphold the status of the established Church of England." seems anachronistic - it would not have been unusual in that period to have not gone to school. Certainly a catholic family would have made education outside the school system more likely, but I am not sure this comment adds much. --User:AYArktos 10:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
== Date of birth ==
Hello,
your article is very good and it helped me to write an essay for university about Pope. But in a German introduction to English Literature I found that his birthday was on the 22th May. So I need to change this.
I would also like to add something about his interest into landscape gardening. ''(unsigned comment by user Daniela Wecker on 9 May)''
That's not so sure. Other sites tell he was born on the 21st. Should see... ''(unsigned comment by IP 212.194.59.142 20 May)''
== when was his birthday? ==
anonymous edited this and other articles saying Pope was born on the 21st instead of the 22nd. I changed it back based on [http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/pope.html this] source, among others. -User:Lethe | User talk:Lethe 03:24, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
== Connecticut, automobile pioneer ==
Looks like there was another notable person who went with this name. Quote "They have a lovely example: in 1915 the people of Hertford, Connecticut, erected a memorial to a local automobile pioneer called Alexander Pope (not the poet)." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4508417.stm]
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Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (May 22, 1688 – May 30, 1744) is considered one of the greatest England poets of the eighteenth century. Born to a Catholic family in 1688, Pope was educated mostly at home, in part due to penal law in force at the time upholding the status of the state church Church of England. From early childhood he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis affecting the vertebral column) which deformed his body and stunted his growth. He never grew beyond 1.37m (4ft 6in). Although he had been writing poetry since the age of 12, his first major contribution to the literary world is considered to be ''An Essay on Criticism,'' which was published in 1711 when he was 23. This was followed by ''The Rape of the Lock'' (1712, revised 1714), his most popular poem; ''Eloisa to Abelard'' and ''Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady'' (1717); and several shorter works, of which perhaps the best are the epistles to Martha Blount. From 1715 to 1720, he worked on a translation of Homer's Iliad. Encouraged by the very favourable reception of this translation, Pope translated the Odyssey (1725-1726) with William Broome and Elijah Fenton. The commercial success of his translations made Pope the first English poet who could live off the sales of his work alone, "indebted to no prince or peer alive," as he put it. In this period Pope also brought out an edition of Shakespeare, which silently "regularised" his metre and rewrote his verse in several places. Lewis Theobald and other scholars attacked Pope's edition, incurring Pope's wrath and inspiring the first version of his satire ''The Dunciad'' (1728), the first of the moral and satiric poems of his last period. His other major poems of this period were ''Moral Essays'' (1731-1735), ''Imitations of Horace'' (1733-1738), the ''Epistle to Arbuthnot'' (1735), the ''Essay on Man'' (1734), and an expanded edition of the ''Dunciad'' (1742), in which Colley Cibber took Theobald's place as the 'hero'. Pope directly addressed the major religious, political and intellectual problems of his time. He developed the heroic couplet beyond the achievement of any previous poet, and major poets after him used it less than those before, as he had decreased its usefulness for them. Pope also wrote the famous epitaph for Sir Isaac Newton: :"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; :God said 'Let Newton be' and all was light." to which J._C._Squire later added the couplet :"It did not last: the devil, shouting 'Ho. :Let Albert_Einstein be' restored the status quo." Pope had a friend and ally in Jonathan Swift. In the 1720s, he formed the Scriblerus Club with Swift and other friends including John Gay. [[Image:Pope-dying.png|thumb|left|240px|The death of Alexander Pope from ''Museus,'' a threnody by William Mason. Diana holds the dying Pope, and John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Geoffrey Chaucer prepare to welcome him to heaven.]] Pope's works were once considered part of the mental furniture of the well-educated person. One edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations includes no less than 212 quotations from Pope. Some, familiar even to those who may not know their source, are "A little learning is a dang'rous thing" (from the ''Essay on Criticism''); "To err is human, to forgive, divine" (''ibid.''); "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread" (''ibid''); and "The proper study of mankind is man" (''Essay on Man''). Pope's reputation declined precipitously in the 19th century, but has recovered substantially since then. Some poems, such as ''The Rape of the Lock'', the moral essays, the imitations of Horace, and several epistles, are regarded as highly now as they have ever been, though others, such as the ''Essay on Man'', have not endured very well, and the merits of two of the most important works, the ''Dunciad'' and the translation of the ''Iliad'', are still disputed. The 19th century considered his diction artificial, his versification too regular, and his satires insufficiently humane. The third charge has been disputed by various 20th century critics including William Empson, and the first does not apply at all to his best work. That Pope was constrained by the demands of "acceptable" diction and prosody is undeniable, but Pope's example shows that great poetry could be written with these constraints. ==Works== * ''Pastorals'' * ''Eloisa to Abelard'' * ''The Rape of the Lock'' * ''Windsor Forest'' * ''The Prologue to the Satires'' (see ''Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot'') * ''An Essay on Criticism'' * ''Essay on Man'' * ''The Dunciad'' ==External links== * * Various biographies [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apope.htm], [http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~sconstan/popebio.html], [http://www.island-of-freedom.com/POPE.HTM] * A copy of "An Essay on Criticism", [http://eserver.org/poetry/essay-on-criticism.html] * Project Gutenberg e-text of [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2428 An Essay On Man] 1688 births 1744 deaths English poets Autodidacts Neoclassicism
Alexander Pope
I changed this: "He was the last major poet to write in traditional rhyming couplets; he developed the heroic couplet beyond that of any previous poet, and essentially exhausted its usefulness for later poets." There's room for disagreement about who's major, but I'd count Keats (''Lamia'') and Frost ("The Bear",
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