English poet pope. Biography of Alexander Pope, England's Most Quoted Poet 2022-10-18
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Alexander Pope was an English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is considered one of the greatest English poets of the 18th century, and his work has been widely anthologized and studied.
Pope was born in London in 1688, the son of a linen merchant. He was raised as a Roman Catholic, a minority faith in England at the time, and was educated at home by private tutors. From an early age, Pope showed a talent for poetry, and he began publishing his work while still in his teens.
Pope's early poetry was largely inspired by the classical tradition, and he was particularly drawn to the work of the ancient Roman poet Horace. Pope's first major work was "An Essay on Criticism," a poem that drew on Horatian satire to critique the literary culture of the time. The poem was a great success, and it established Pope as a leading figure in English literature.
Pope's most famous work is probably his translation of Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey." Pope's translation of these epic poems was a major undertaking, and it took him several years to complete. His translation is known for its accuracy and clarity, and it remains one of the most widely read and respected translations of Homer's work.
Pope's other notable works include "The Rape of the Lock," a mock-heroic poem that satirizes the petty feuds of the English aristocracy, and "The Dunciad," a biting satire of the literary and cultural figures of the day. Pope was a master of satire, and his work is characterized by its wit, humor, and sharp observation of human foibles.
Pope's poetry was hugely influential in his own time, and it continues to be widely read and studied today. He is considered one of the greatest English poets of the 18th century, and his work has had a lasting impact on English literature and culture.
Alexander Pope
Broome's description of the clothes-washing by Nausicaa and her maidens in the sixth book may be compared with the original as a luminous specimen. Aspiring to be gods if angels fell aspiring to be angels men rebel. In 1744, his doctor reassured him that he was improving, but Pope only made a joke and accepted his fate. The Essay on Man, which may be said to contain the essence of the thought of men of the world in his generation on its subject—such was the poet's skill and judgment in collecting the substance of floating opinion—was announced by Pope as part of a system of "pieces on human life and manners. They suggested a number of alterations to the text. Retrieved 24 July 2021. Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, Collected from the Conversation of Mr.
Biography of Alexander Pope, England's Most Quoted Poet
When we look at the subjects of Pope's juvenile attempts, we cannot fail to be struck by a singular clearness of purpose in his poetic ambition, such as might have come from the judgment of the accomplished man of the world who was his adviser. He had an artificial grotto built for which William Borlase, an antiquarian and naturalist with whom he had a long correspondence, taught fossils and minerals. These were written in the popular Augustan form of the "imitation" of a classical poet, not so much a translation of his works as an updating with contemporary references. Carolyn Williams contends that a crisis in the male role during the 18th century in Britain impacted Pope and his writing. This indeed was avowed by Pope, who claimed that it was their attacks on himself that had given him a right to their names. Ellen Pollak's 'The Poetics of Sexual Myth' 1985 argues that Pope followed an anti-feminist tradition, that regarded women as inferior to men both intellectually and physically.
Best Satirical Quotes of English Poet Alexander Pope « Tabloid India
There he lived in the pale sunshine of literary success, and there he quarreled with every writer who failed to appreciate his verses, his jealousy overflowing at last in The Dunciad Iliad of Dunces , a witty but venomous lampoon, in which he took revenge on all who had angered him. Pope gets the message across that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain of Being" which is at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. What Dryden had touched Pope did not presume to meddle with,— Dryden was his hero and master; but there was much more of the same kind to be done. These events led to an immediate downturn in the fortunes of the Tories, and Pope's friend, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke fled to France. In 1738 he wrote the Universal Prayer. Their poetic ventures were encouraged by the growth in publishing generally and, in particular, by the invention of magazines and literary journals. A camera obscura was installed to delight his visitors, of whom there were many.
Dryden was his first master, from whom he inherited the couplet, then he imitated the French critic Boileau and the Roman poet Horace. He also met the Blount sisters, Teresa and From the age of 12 he suffered numerous health problems, including In May 1709, Pope's Pastorals was published in the sixth part of bookseller Poetical Miscellanies. And the character of their poetry also suffered. She cannot do this without powders and washes and paint-pots. His metrical letter to Cromwell, which Mr Elwin dates in 1707, when Pope was nineteen, is also a brilliant feat of versification, and has turns of wit in it as easy and spirited as any to be found in his mature satires. Against Pope's petulance and "general love of secrecy and cunning " have to be set, in any fair judgment of his character, his exemplary conduct as a son, the affection with which he was regarded in his own circle of intimates, and many well-authenticated instances of genuine kindliness to persons in distress.
Going underground: English poet Alexander Pope’s hidden grotto to be saved
Pope decorated the grotto with alabaster, marbles, and ores such as mundic and crystals. The Essay on Man 1732-34 was also intimately connected with passing controversies. Many of its admirers, doubtless, like Lady Mary Montague, would have thought less of it if they had not believed all the maxims to be original; but people of fashion are seldom wide readers, and they gave Pope credit for much that they might have found, where he found it, in Quintilian, Rapin, and Bossu. Pope began writing the poem early in his career and took about three years to finish it. Here was a true pastoral poet, the eldest born of Spenser, the worthy successor of Theocritus and Virgil! The Satires and Epistles are the most original and wittiest of Pope's writings.
The survivors of the Scriblerus Club—Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay— resumed their old amusement of parodying and otherwise ridiculing bad writers, especially bad writers in the Whig interest. But Pope was not a thinker like Butler. At the time the poem was published, the heroic couplet style in which it was written was a moderately new genre of poetry, and Pope's most ambitious work. The final section of An Essay on Criticism discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who, Pope claims, is also the ideal man. We see gathered up in them the worst that was thought and said' about the court party when men's minds were heated almost to the point of civil war. One of them, The Pastorals. In this didactic work, as in his Essay on Criticism, he put together on a sufficiently simple plan a series of happy sayings, separately elaborated, picking up the thoughts as he found them in miscellaneous reading and conversation, and trying only to fit them with perfect expression.
After 1738, Pope wrote little. And his literary conscience was so strong that not one of his attacks on literary grounds was unjust. The grotto now lies beneath Radnor House Independent Co-ed School, and is occasionally opened to the public. Pope 1820 , p. THE FIRST ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE. By the age of 23, he had written A folio containing a collection of his poems appeared in 1717, along with two new ones about the passion of love: Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady and the famous proto-romantic poem Eloisa to Abelard, and to Martha Blount, with whom his friendship continued through his life.
A third of the whole paper is devoted to warning the young poet against a spirit of envy and detraction, all because he had thrown a stone in passing at two of the common butts of their generation. Perhaps Pope and Theobald were well acquainted with each other, and Pope explained that it was no doubt a violation of the rules of friendship. He also met Teresa and his alleged future lover Martha, both whom would remain lifelong friends. Such things should not be taken too seriously, if a Scotsman may say so. Critics pay special attention to the fictitious card game, 'Ombre', that Pope creates for the poem; much time has been spent trying to reconstruct the rules of the game, and the arcane obscurity of how it might actually be played reflects the Byzantine nature of 18th-century high society Though the Dunciad was first published anonymously in Dublin, its authorship was not in doubt. The second edition of Pope's Shakespeare appeared in 1728.
