Alexander Pope Biography and Works.

Alexander Pope was born on May 21, 1688 in Plough Court, Lombard street, London to parents Alexander Pope Senior and Edith. He was an English poet. Alexander Pope was taught to read by his aunt, and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99. He mostly 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 came into contact with figures from the London Literary Society. He died on May 30, 1744.

In 1709, Pope’s Pastorals was published in the sixth part of Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies. Followed by An Essay on Criticism, published in May 1711, both were equally well received. Pope became friends with Tory writers, John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, and together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club around 1711. In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim.

Pope’s next poem, The Rape of the Lock, first published in 1712, with a revised version published in 1714 is sometimes considered Pope’s most popular poem.

Alexander Pope contributed to Addison’s play, Cato, as well as writing for The Guardian and The Spectator.

In 1731, Pope published his “Epistle to Burlington”, on the subject of architecture, the first of four poems which would later be grouped under the title, Moral Essays. Pope wrote An Essay on Man (1733), then the Imitations of Horace followed (1733-38). Pope also added a wholly original poem, An Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot, as an introduction to the “Imitations”. After 1738, Pope wrote little.