page_title: Alexander Pope
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Pope / Life
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
context_page_description: Alexander Pope is regarded as one of the greatest English poets, and the foremost poet of the early eighteenth century. He is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry, including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, as well as for his translation of Homer. After Shakespeare, Pope is the second-most quoted writer in the English language, per The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, some of his verses having even become popular idioms in common parlance. He is considered a master of the heroic couplet.
  Pope's poetic career testifies to his indomitable spirit in the face of disadvantages, of health and of circumstance. The poet and his family were Catholics and thus fell subject to the Test Acts, prohibitive measures which severely hampered the prosperity of their co-religionists after the abdication of James II; one of these banned them from living within ten miles of London, and another from attending public school or university. For this reason, except for a few spurious Catholic schools, Pope was largely self-educated. He was taught to read by his aunt and became a lover of books.
caption: Portrait of Alexander Pope. Studio of Godfrey Kneller. Oil on canvas, c. 1716[2]
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