Pope was born in London as a son of a Catholic linen-merchant. As a Catholic he wasn't allowed to enter any universities and had an uneven education. Pope learned Latin and Greek from a local priest and later he acquired knowledge of French and Italian. In 1700, when his family moved to Bonfield in Windsor Forest, Pope contracted tuberculosis, probably Pott's disease, a tubercular affection of the spine. He suffered also from asthma, and his deformity in the back was constant target for his critics in literary battles. In middle age he was 4ft 6in tall and weared a stiffened canvas bodice to support his spine.
After moving to London Pope published his first major work, An Essay on Criticism, a discussion based on neoclassical dotrines, deriving standards of taste from the order of nature: "Good nature and good sense must ever join; / To err is human, to forgive divine." He entered in literary circles associating with anti-Catholic Whig friends, but by 1713 he had moved towards the Tories, becaming on of the Scriblerus Club, associating of Tory intellectuals with such members as Switft, Gay, Congreve and Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford. In 1712 Pope published an early version of THE RAPE OF THE LOCK, an elegant comic piece about the war between the sexes, which was expanded in 1714.
Pope's admired Horace and Vergilius and valued them as models for poetry. Among his greatest achievements was the translations of Iliad and Odyssey into English. The success of the translations enabled him to move to Twickenham from anti-Catholic pressure of the Jacobites. He became one of the first professional poets to be self-sufficient as a result of his non-dramatic writings. The publication in 1717 of his collected works established Pope as a leading man of letters in his day.
At his surroundings in Twickenham Pope began to be fascinated by horticulture and landscape gardening. He formed an attachment with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, his neigbour, but when the friendship soured he started a life long relationship with Martha Blount. Later in IMITATIONS OF HORACE (1733) Pope wrote an attack on his former friend Lady Mary as 'Sappho'. In Twickenham he entertained numerous visitors including Swift, whom he helped with the publication of Gulliver's Travels.
In the 1730s Pope published ESSAY ON MAN (1733-34), MORAL ESSAYS (1731), and prepared an edition of his correspondence, doctored to his own advantage. He also employed discreditable artefices to make it appear that the correspondence was published against his wish.
In his time Pope was famous for his witty satires and aggressive, bitter quarrels with other writers. After his edition of William Shakespeare was attacked he answered with the mock-epic THE DUNCIAD (1728), which was widened in 1742. During his last years Pope designed a romantic 'grot' in a tunnel which linked the waterfront with his back garden. It was walled with shells and pieces of mirror.
Pope died on May 30, 1744. He left his property to Martha Blount. With the growth of Romanticism Pope's poetry was increasingly seen as artifical, and it was not until 1930s when serious attempt was made to rediscover the poet's work.
Rape of the Lock - first version consisted of two cantos (1712) and the final version five cantos (1714). The poem recounts the story of a young woman, Belinda, who wakes up and whose exotic cosmetics and beauty aids, brought from the farthest corners of the earth, are described with delight. She plays cards, flirts, drinks coffee and has a lock of hair stolen by an ardent young man. Pope gives this trivial event an extended mock heroic treatment, like it was a quarrel between the Greeks and the Trojans. The poem comments ironically on the contemporary social world, satirizing the superficial concerns of society women. - Based on a quarrel between two families with whom Pope was acquainted, caused by Lord Petre cutting off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor's hair.
Museums: Pope's grotto and Pope's villa, Cross Deep, Twickenham, Middlesex - the grotto and garden are all that remains of Pope's villa. - Manor House and Pope's Tower, Stanton Harcourt, nr Withey - Pope translated there the fifth volume of Homer's Iliad - For further reading: Alexander Pope by Sir Leslie Stephen (1908); Alexander Pope by E. Sitwell (1930); The Early Career of Alexandr Pope by G. Sherburn (1934); Nwe Light on Pope by A. Ault (1949); On the Poetry of Pope by G. Tillotson (1958); Essential Articles for the Study of Pope, ed. by M. Mack (1968); Alexander Pope: The Education of a Genius by P. Quennell (1968); Alexander Pope: The Critical Heritage, ed. by J. Barnard (1973); An Introduction to Pope by Y. Gooneratne (1976); The Art of Pope, ed. by H. Erskine-Hill and A. Smith (1979); Pope's Imagination by D. Fairer (1984); Alexander Pope: A Life by M. Mack (1985); Alexander Pope: A Literary Life by Felicity Rosslyn / Hardcover (1990); Approaches to Teaching Pope's Poetry, ed. by R. Paul Yoder (1993); Alexander Pope and His Eighteenth-Century Women Readers by Claudia N. Thomas (1994); Alexander Pope: The Critical Heritage, ed. by John Barnard (1995); Resemblance & Disgrace: Alexander Pope and the Deformation of Culture by Helen Deutsch (1996); A Contradiction Still: Representations of Women in the Poetry of Alexander Pope by Christa Knellwolf (1999); Alexander Pope by R. Quintero (1999) - See also: Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gay
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