Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope: Literary Analysis
Everybody knows Alexander Pope as a British poet, but he actually did more writing besides poetry. He also did translations of some other famous writings from Homer and Shakespeare. Some of his writings are still very famous today, such as the Rape of the Lock and Essay on Man. Pope was born on May 21, 1688 in London to two Catholic parents. Pope was affected to the amount he could learn due to the Tests Acts, which upheld the status of the established Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, or holding public office on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Due to this, his aunt taught him to read and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99. While they were still illegal but tolerated in some areas, he went to two Catholic schools on London. In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest. They had to move because there was a strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics living within 10 miles or either London or Westminster. He stopped formal schooling around this time and educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden. He also studied many languages and writings from English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. Many people influenced his writing such as: Sir William Trumbell. Others were the dramatist and poet William Wychdey and so did the poet critic William Walsh.
Pope was the greatest poet and verse satirist of the Enlightenment period. No other poet in the history of English literature has handled the heroic couplet with comparable flexibility and brilliance. He inherited from John Dryden the verse form that he chose to perfect. He polished his work with meticulous care and, like all great poets,
Everybody knows Alexander Pope as a British poet, but he actually did more writing besides poetry. He also did translations of some other famous writings from Homer and Shakespeare. Some of his writings are still very famous today, such as the Rape of the Lock and Essay on Man. Pope was born on May 21, 1688 in London to two Catholic parents. Pope was affected to the amount he could learn due to the Tests Acts, which upheld the status of the established Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, or holding public office on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Due to this, his aunt taught him to read and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99. While they were still illegal but tolerated in some areas, he went to two Catholic schools on London. In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest. They had to move because there was a strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics living within 10 miles or either London or Westminster. He stopped formal schooling around this time and educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden. He also studied many languages and writings from English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. Many people influenced his writing such as: Sir William Trumbell. Others were the dramatist and poet William Wychdey and so did the poet critic William Walsh.
Pope was the greatest poet and verse satirist of the Enlightenment period. No other poet in the history of English literature has handled the heroic couplet with comparable flexibility and brilliance. He inherited from John Dryden the verse form that he chose to perfect. He polished his work with meticulous care and, like all great poets,
Cited: Sources: Crawford J. Alexander Pope. Magill’s Survey of World Literature. Revised Edition. January 2009; 1-8. Available from: Literary Reference Center. Ipswich Ma: Web March 1,2013 SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Rape of the Lock.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. Stephen I. Curnoy “Alexander Pope” Critical Survey of Poetry, 2011, Volume 3 pg 969-1470 "Alexander Pope." - Poets.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2013. Michael Moncur “Quotations by Author” quotationspage.com. Web. 6 May 2013. Annina Jokinen “Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature: Alexander Pope” Web. 6 May 2013