Alexander Pope (1688-1744) had to overcome enormous barriers to find success.  First, he was born to a Catholic family in the year of the Glorious Revolution--the final defeat of the Catholic hopes for the English throne.  As a result, he grew up in an England that discriminated against Catholics; he could not attend a university, for example, because of his religious persuasion, and he was forbidden on the basis of religion from becoming a lawyer, doctor, or a clergyman.

But Pope was handicapped by more than his religion. He developed tubercular bone disease, which recurred throughout his life and left him frail, sickly, and hunchbacked--and 4'6" tall.

He was educated at home and on occasion attended Catholic schools, but for the most part he was self-educated, immersing himself in classics and languages (acquiring reading knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, and Italian before the age of 16). He was considered a prodigy by the time he was in his late teens, and he formed acquaintances with many members of the London literary community, eventually forming close friendships with such other literary figures as Jonathan Swift.  My favorite example of his stature as a prodigy is that he wrote "An Essay on Criticism," which outlines "laws" for good writing and good criticism, while he was in his teens, and saw it published when he was about your age (21).

He is known as the master of the heroic couplet, which at its best can encapsulate an idea in 20 syllables of perfectly balanced iambic pentameter. The classic example is in "An Essay on Criticism":

     True Wit is Nature to advantage dressed:
     What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

(A heroic couplet is made up of two lines of iambic pentameter, rhymed and end-stopped.) 

His poetic works earned him respect and fame, but not much money; his financial success came as a result of his translations of Homer and his edition of Shakespeare.  He made enough money to settle at his own small estate in Twickenham, outside London, where he developed an extraordinary garden (a man after my own heart--see my garden). He never married.

Study Questions

What is Deism?