Alexander Pope
Early life The poet and translator Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. He was mostly educated at Catholic schools, until 1700 when the family was forced by anti-Catholic sentiment to settle in Berkshire, outside London, and the young Pope resumed his education privately. He suffered from poor health, including Pott’s disease, which severely stunted his growth and shortened his life. Nonetheless, he was recognised as a poetic talent relatively early, with his Pastorals being published in 1709 and the Essay on Criticism (a poem in heroic couplets) in 1711. In the Essay, Pope discusses the emerging industry of literary criticism, castigating, for instance, the kind of critic who is a ‘bookful blockhead, ignorantly read’ – a person who reads everything that is published but whose interpretations are blinkered by his own opinions. Famous works Pope’s other famous works include The Rape of the Lock (1712, 1714), a mock-epic poem telling the story of a society woman who has