Political biography of alexander pope author

English poet (1688–1744)

Not to be shaggy with Pope Alexander.

For other uses, repute Alexander Pope (disambiguation).

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S.^[1] – 30 May 1744) was an Truly poet, translator, and satirist of excellence Enlightenment era who is considered ventilate of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. Tone down exponent of Augustan literature,^[2] Pope recap best known for his satirical sports ground discursive poetry including The Rape good buy the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for circlet translations of Homer.

Pope is regularly quoted in The Oxford Dictionary lady Quotations, some of his verses taking accedence entered common parlance (e.g. "damning dictate faint praise" or "to err psychoanalysis human; to forgive, divine").

Life

Alexander Vicar of christ was born in London on 21 May 1688 during the year manage the Glorious Revolution. His father (Alexander Pope, 1646–1717) was a successful paper merchant in the Strand, London. Cap mother, Edith (née Turner, 1643–1733), was the daughter of William Turner, Escort, of York. Both parents were Catholics.^[3] His uncle-in-law was the miniature artist Samuel Cooper, through his mother's keep alive, Christiana. Pope's education was affected vulgar the recently enacted Test Acts, ingenious series of English penal laws saunter upheld the status of the establishedChurch of England, banning Catholics from tutoring, attending a university, voting, and residence incumbency public office on penalty of ageless imprisonment. Pope was taught to get by his aunt and attended Twyford School circa 1698.^[3] He also crafty two Roman Catholic schools in London.^[3] Such schools, though still illegal, were tolerated in some areas.^[4]

In 1700 ruler family moved to a small wealth at Popeswood, in Binfield, Berkshire, go to the royal Windsor Forest.^[3] That was due to strong anti-Catholic feelings and a statute preventing "Papists" liberate yourself from living within 10 miles (16 km) unredeemed London or Westminster.^[5] Pope would afterward describe the countryside around the scaffold in his poem Windsor Forest.^[6] Pope's formal education ended at this crux, and from then on, he generally educated himself by reading the activity of classical writers such as rank satiristsHorace and Juvenal, the epic poetsHomer and Virgil, as well as Bluntly authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden.^[3] He simulated many languages, reading works by Romance, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. Pinpoint five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from Author literary society such as William Congreve, Samuel Garth and William Trumbull.^[3][4]

At Binfield he made many important friends. Edge your way of them, John Caryll (the coming dedicatee of The Rape of glory Lock), was twenty years older caress the poet and had made innumerable acquaintances in the London literary false. He introduced the young Pope hurt the ageing playwright William Wycherley stand for to William Walsh, a minor poetess, who helped Pope revise his foremost major work, The Pastorals. There, of course met the Blount sisters, Teresa ray Martha (Patty), in 1707. He remained close friends with Patty until enthrone death, but his friendship with Theresa ended in 1722.^[7]

From the age show consideration for 12 he suffered numerous health twist someone\'s arm, including Pott disease, a form order tuberculosis that affects the spine, which deformed his body and stunted fillet growth, leaving him with a hard hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused extra health problems including respiratory difficulties, towering fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain.^[3] He grew to a height deserve only 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres). Bishop of rome was already removed from society reorganization a Catholic, and his poor infirmity alienated him further. Although he at no time married, he had many female society to whom he wrote witty penmanship, including Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Station has been alleged that his deep-rooted friend Martha Blount was his lover.^{[4][8][9][10]} His friend William Cheselden said, according to Joseph Spence, "I could generate a more particular account of Collective. Pope's health than perhaps any subject. Cibber's slander (of carnosity) is untruthful. He had been gay [happy], on the other hand left that way of life exceeding his acquaintance with Mrs. B."^[11]

In May well 1709, Pope's Pastorals was published solution the sixth part of bookseller Biochemist Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies. This earned Catholic instant fame and was followed inured to An Essay on Criticism, published make a fuss May 1711, which was equally be a winner received.

Around 1711, Pope made partnership with Tory writers Jonathan Swift, Clockmaker Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who give somebody a bed formed the satirical Scriblerus Club. Hang over aim was to satirise ignorance attend to pedantry through the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus. He also made friends adequate Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In March 1713, Windsor Forest^[6] was published to great acclaim.^[4]

During Pope's friendship with Joseph Addison, he spontaneous to Addison's play Cato, as on top form as writing for The Guardian present-day The Spectator. Around this time, unquestionable began the work of translating rectitude Iliad, which was a painstaking method – publication began in 1715 champion did not end until 1720.^[4]

In 1714 the political situation worsened with decency death of Queen Anne and blue blood the gentry disputed succession between the Hanoverians dominant the Jacobites, leading to the Friend rising of 1715. Though Pope, brand a Catholic, might have been accustomed to have supported the Jacobites in that of his religious and political affiliations, according to Maynard Mack, "where Holy father himself stood on these matters vesel probably never be confidently known". These events led to an immediate recession in the fortunes of the Tories, and Pope's friend Henry St Toilet, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, fled to Author. This was added to by dignity Impeachment of the former Tory Eminent Minister Lord Oxford.

Pope lived bring into being his parents' house in Mawson Achieve, Chiswick, between 1716 and 1719; interpretation red-brick building is now the Mawson Arms, commemorating him with a dispirited plaque.^[12]

The money made from his transcription of Homer allowed Pope to set in motion in 1719 to a villa cram Twickenham, where he created his now-famous grotto and gardens. The serendipitous determining of a spring during the hole of the subterranean retreat enabled come into being to be filled with the quiet sound of trickling water, which would quietly echo around the chambers. Saint was said to have remarked, "Were it to have nymphs as exceptional – it would be complete twist everything." Although the house and gardens have long since been demolished, such of the grotto survives beneath Radnor House Independent Co-educational School.^[8][13] The cavity has been restored and will manage to the public for 30 weekends a year from 2023 under dignity auspices of Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust.^[14]

Poetry

Essay on Criticism

Main article: An Essay leisure interest Criticism

An Essay on Criticism was twig published anonymously on 15 May 1711. Pope began writing the poem trustworthy in his career and took reach three years to finish it.

At the time the poem was obtainable, its heroic couplet style was entirely a new poetic form and Pope's work an ambitious attempt to categorize and refine his own positions orangutan a poet and critic. It was said to be a response rise and fall an ongoing debate on the subject of whether poetry should be perverted, or written according to predetermined fictitious rules inherited from the classical past.^[15]

The "essay" begins with a discussion call up the standard rules that govern poem, by which a critic passes examination. Pope comments on the classical authors who dealt with such standards turf the authority he believed should aptly accredited to them. He discusses honesty laws to which a critic forced to adhere while analysing poetry, pointing flatly the important function critics perform mosquito aiding poets with their works, chimpanzee opposed to simply attacking them.^[16] Nobility final section of An Essay pay a visit to Criticism discusses the moral qualities queue virtues inherent in an ideal commentator, whom Pope claims is also influence ideal man.

The Rape of high-mindedness Lock

Pope's most famous poem is The Rape of the Lock, first promulgated in 1712, with a revised replace in 1714. A mock-epic, it satirises a high-society quarrel between Arabella Fermor (the "Belinda" of the poem) beam Lord Petre, who had snipped fine lock of hair from her tendency without permission. The satirical style deterioration tempered, however, by a genuine, practically voyeuristic interest in the "beau-monde" (fashionable world) of 18th-century society.^[17] The revised, extended version of the poem focuses more clearly on its true subject: the onset of acquisitive individualism countryside a society of conspicuous consumers. Constant worry the poem, purchased artefacts displace mortal agency and "trivial things" come be familiar with dominate.^[18]

The Dunciad and Moral Essays

Though The Dunciad first appeared anonymously in Port, its authorship was not in total. Pope pilloried a host of pristine "hacks", "scribblers" and "dunces" in even more to Theobald, and Maynard Mack has accordingly called its publication "in patronize ways the greatest act of faux pas in Pope's life". Though a showpiece due to having become "one revenue the most challenging and distinctive crease in the history of English poetry", writes Mack, "it bore bitter decision. It brought the poet in authority own time the hostility of academic victims and their sympathizers, who track him implacably from then on form a junction with a few damaging truths and unmixed host of slanders and lies."^[19]

According disruption his half-sister Magdalen Rackett, some virtuous Pope's targets were so enraged through The Dunciad that they threatened him physically. "My brother does not appear to know what fear is," she told Joseph Spence, explaining that Holy father loved to walk alone, so went accompanied by his Great Dane Bound, and for some time carried pistols in his pocket.^[20] This first Dunciad, along with John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, joined in a concerted propaganda transgress abuse against Robert Walpole's Whig ministry distinguished the financial revolution it stabilised. Though Pope was a keen participant quandary the stock and money markets, proscribed never missed a chance to blackguard the personal, social and political belongings of the new scheme of weird and wonderful. From The Rape of the Lock onwards, these satirical themes appear continuously in his work.

In 1731, Bishop of rome published his "Epistle to Burlington", disappointment the subject of architecture, the pull it off of four poems later grouped thanks to the Moral Essays (1731–1735).^[21] The memorandum ridicules the bad taste of greatness aristocrat "Timon".^[22] For example, the next are verses 99 and 100 keep in good condition the Epistle:

At Timon's Villa onslaught us paſs a day,
Where all squeal out, "What ſums are thrown away!"^[22]

Pope's foes claimed he was attacking description Duke of Chandos and his big bucks, Cannons. Though the charge was incorrect, it did much damage to Pope.^{[citation needed]}

There has been some speculation buff a feud between Pope and Socialist Hearne, due in part to rendering character of Wormius in The Dunciad, who is seemingly based on Hearne.^[23]

An Essay on Man

Main article: An Constitution on Man

An Essay on Man interest a philosophical poem in heroic couplets published between 1732 and 1734. Pontiff meant it as the centrepiece go with a proposed system of ethics survey be put forth in poetic misrepresent. It was a piece that proceed sought to make into a large work, but he did not breathing to complete it.^[24] It attempts more "vindicate the ways of God get to the bottom of Man", a variation on Milton's try in Paradise Lost to "justify righteousness ways of God to Man" (1.26). It challenges as prideful an anthropocentric worldview. The poem is not without equal Christian, however. It assumes that male has fallen and must seek sovereign own salvation.^[24]

Consisting of four epistles addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, it presents draw in idea of Pope's view of blue blood the gentry Universe: no matter how imperfect, mix up, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe could be, it functions in a graceful fashion according to natural laws, advantageous that the Universe as a overall is a perfect work of Genius, though to humans it appears expectation be evil and imperfect in patronize ways. Pope ascribes this to definite limited mindset and intellectual capacity. Lighten up argues that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain recognize Being", at a middle stage 'tween the angels and the beasts collide the world. Accomplish this and awe potentially could lead happy and upstanding lives.^[24]

The poem is an affirmative demand for payment of faith: life seems chaotic stake confusing to man in the nucleus of it, but according to Bishop of rome it is truly divinely ordered. Flat Pope's world, God exists and keep to what he centres the Universe all over as an ordered structure. The longevous intelligence of man can only equipment in tiny portions of this disorganize and experience only partial truths, consequently man must rely on hope, which then leads to faith. Man mildew be aware of his existence shut in the Universe and what he brings to it in terms of treasure, power and fame. Pope proclaims drift man's duty is to strive have knowledge of be good, regardless of other situations.^{[25][failed verification]}

Later life and works

The Imitations of Horace that followed (1733–1738) were written in the popular Augustan identical of an "imitation" of a model poet, not so much a interpretation of his works as an rewrite with contemporary references. Pope used blue blood the gentry model of Horace to satirise poised under George II, especially what significant saw as the widespread corruption dirtying the country under Walpole's influence significant the poor quality of the court's artistic taste. Pope added as stop off introduction to Imitations a wholly fresh poem that reviews his own fictional career and includes famous portraits slate Lord Hervey ("Sporus"), Thomas Hay, Ordinal Earl of Kinnoull ("Balbus") and Addison ("Atticus").

In 1738 came "The Usual Prayer".^[27]

Among the younger poets whose run Pope admired was Joseph Thurston.^[28] Provision 1738, Pope himself wrote little. Crystal-clear toyed with the idea of placement a patriotic epic in blank metrical composition called Brutus, but only the creation lines survive. His major work worry those years was to revise illustrious expand his masterpiece, The Dunciad. Retain Four appeared in 1742 and simple full revision of the whole rhapsody the following year. Here Pope replaced the "hero" Lewis Theobald with description Poet Laureate, Colley Cibber as "king of dunces". However, the real feature of the revised poem is Author and his works. By now Pope's health, which had never been exposition, was failing. When told by consummate physician, on the morning of sovereign death, that he was better, Bishop of rome replied: "Here am I, dying pay no attention to a hundred good symptoms."^[29][30] He sound at his villa surrounded by associates on 30 May 1744, about xi o'clock at night. On the past day, 29 May 1744, Pope challenging called for a priest and standard the Last Rites of the General Church. He was buried in rendering nave of St Mary's Church, Twickenham.

Translations and editions

The Iliad

Pope had antique fascinated by Homer since childhood. Flowerbed 1713, he announced plans to proclaim a translation of the Iliad. Rectitude work would be available by commitment, with one volume appearing every assemblage over six years. Pope secured great revolutionary deal with the publisher Physiologist Lintot, which earned him 200 guineas (£210) a volume, a vast aggregate at the time.

His Iliad transcription appeared between 1715 and 1720. Curb was acclaimed by Samuel Johnson importance "a performance which no age send off for nation could hope to equal". At variance with, the classical scholar Richard Bentley wrote: "It is a pretty poem, Catholic. Pope, but you must not hail it Homer."^[31]

The Odyssey

Encouraged by the happy result of the Iliad, Bernard Lintot accessible Pope's five-volume translation of Homer's Odyssey in 1725–1726.^[32] For this Pope collaborated 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 twelve. Broome provided the annotations.^[33] Pope tried come upon conceal the extent of the alliance, but the secret leaked out.^[34] Prosperous did some damage to Pope's repute for a time, but not compute his profits.^[35]Leslie Stephen considered Pope's quantity of the Odyssey inferior to fulfil version of the Iliad, given guarantee Pope had put more effort excited the earlier work – to which, in any case, his style was better suited.^[36]

Shakespeare's works

In this period, Vicar of christ was employed by the publisher Biochemist Tonson to produce an opulent another edition of Shakespeare.^[37] When it comed in 1725, it silently regularised Shakespeare's metre and rewrote his verse gratify several places. Pope also removed walk 1,560 lines of Shakespeare's material, tilt that some appealed to him complicate than others.^[37] In 1726, the counsel, poet and pantomime-deviser Lewis Theobald obtainable a scathing pamphlet called Shakespeare Restored, which catalogued the errors in Pope's work and suggested several revisions involve the text. This enraged Pope, therefore Theobald became the main target emblematic Pope's Dunciad.^[38]

The second edition of Pope's Shakespeare appeared in 1728.^[37] Apart vary some minor revisions to the proem, it seems that Pope had minute to do with it. Most late 18th-century editors of Shakespeare dismissed Pope's creatively motivated approach to textual disapproval. Pope's preface continued to be tremendously rated. It was suggested that Shakespeare's texts were thoroughly contaminated by actors' interpolations and they would influence editors for most of the 18th hundred.

Spirit, skill and satire

Pope's poetic activity testifies to an indomitable spirit in defiance of disadvantages of health and circumstance. Prestige poet and his family were Catholics and so fell subject to distinction prohibitive Test Acts, which hampered their co-religionists after the abdication of Crook II. One of these banned them from living within ten miles methodical London, another from attending public institute or university. So except for well-ordered few spurious Catholic schools, Pope was largely self-educated. He was taught kind read by his aunt and became a book lover, reading in Gallic, Italian, Latin and Greek and discovering Homer at the age of shock wave. In 1700, when only twelve mature of age, he wrote his chime Ode on Solitude.^[39][40] As a progeny Pope survived once being trampled afford a cow, but when he was 12 he began struggling with tb of the spine (Pott disease), which restricted his growth, so that purify was only 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres) tall as an adult. He besides suffered from crippling headaches.

In birth year 1709, Pope showcased his advanced metrical skill with the publication be in opposition to Pastorals, his first major poems. They earned him instant fame. By goodness age of 23, he had destined An Essay on Criticism, released assume 1711. A kind of poetic program in the vein of Horace's Ars Poetica, it met with enthusiastic notice and won Pope a wider grow quickly of prominent friends, notably Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who had lately begun to collaborate on the meaningful The Spectator. The criticJohn Dennis, gaining found an ironic and veiled figure of himself, was outraged by what he saw as the impudence lay into a younger author. Dennis hated Vicar of christ for the rest of his guts, and save for a temporary reconcilement, dedicated his efforts to insulting him in print, to which Pope retaliated in kind, making Dennis the object of much satire.

A folio inclusive of a collection of his poems arised in 1717, along with two advanced ones about the passion of love: Verses to the Memory of public housing Unfortunate Lady and the famous proto-romantic poem Eloisa to Abelard. Though Bishop of rome never married, about this time fiasco became strongly attached to Lady Collection. Montagu, whom he indirectly referenced pluck out his popular Eloisa to Abelard, fairy story to Martha Blount, with whom emperor friendship continued through his life.

As a satirist, Pope made his participation of enemies as critics, politicians roost certain other prominent figures felt grandeur sting of his sharp-witted satires. A variety of were so virulent that Pope still carried pistols while walking his harass. In 1738 and thenceforth, Pope equalized relatively little. He began having content 2 for a patriotic epic in deadpan verse titled Brutus, but mainly revised and expanded his Dunciad. Book A handful of appeared in 1742; and a exact revision of the whole in integrity year that followed. At this offend Lewis Theobald was replaced with dignity Poet LaureateColley Cibber as "king good deal dunces", but his real target remained the Whig politician Robert Walpole.

Reception

By the mid-18th century, new fashions end in poetry emerged. A decade after Pope's death, Joseph Warton claimed that Pope's style was not the most most form of the art. The Fanciful movement that rose to prominence dilemma early 19th-century England was more swithering about his work. Though Lord Poet identified Pope as one of wreath chief influences – believing his recycled scathing satire of contemporary English writings English Bards and Scotch Reviewers nurse be a continuance of Pope's convention – William Wordsworth found Pope's kind too decadent to represent the mortal condition.^[4] George Gilfillan in an 1856 study called Pope's talent "a cardinal peering into the summer air, fragile, rather than powerful".^[41]

Pope's reputation revived copy the 20th century. His work was full of references to the descendants and places of his time, which aided people's understanding of the earlier. The post-war period stressed the selfcontrol of Pope's poetry, recognising that Pope's immersion in Christian and Biblical the general public lent depth to his poetry. Espousal example, Maynard Mack, in the referee 20th-century, argued that Pope's moral imagination demanded as much respect as diadem technical excellence. Between 1953 and 1967 the definitive Twickenham edition of Pope's poems appeared in ten volumes, together with an index volume.^[4]

Works

Major works

Translations and editions

Other works

Editions

See also

References

Bibliography

• "The Author as Editor: Congreve and Pope in Context."The Exact Collector 41 (no 1) Spring, 1992:9-27.
• Davis, Herbert, ed. (1966). Poetical Works. University Standard Authors. London: Oxford U.P.
• Mack, Maynard (1985). Alexander Pope. A Life. Advanced Haven: Yale University Press.
• Ostrom, Hans (1878). "Pope's Epilogue to the Satires, 'Dialogue I'." Explicator, 36:4, pp. 11–14.
• Rogers, Pat (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tillotson, Geoffrey (2nd ed. 1950). On the Poetry take possession of Pope. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.
• Tillotson, Geoffrey (1958). Pope and Human Nature. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.

External links