PopePope in an immeasurable respect is an exceptional personality. In the first place, he was for a generation “the poet” of a great nation. There is not a single point to doubt that poetry was very limited in early eighteen century; there were very few lyrics, little or no love poetry, no epics, no dramas or songs of nature, but when we come in the narrow field of satiric and didactic verse Pope was the undisputed master. His influence completely dominated the poetry of his age. Several other foreign writers, as well as the mainstream of English poets, looked to him as their model. Pope was remarkably clear and adequate reflection of the spirit of the age in which he lived. He was the only writer of that age who devoted his whole life to letters.


More… Lights on his Life:

Pope was born in the year of the Revolution i.e. 1688 in London. His parents were Catholics, they left London and settled in Binfield, near Windsor, where he spent his childhood. Unfortunately he received very less school education because of prejudice against Catholics in Public School and also because of his own weakness and deformity. But all these didnot end his interest to literature, his mind and soul was with literature hence he browsed for himself among English books and picked up a smattering of the classics. At very early he began to write poetry and records the fact with his usual vanity:

“As yet a child, not yet a fool to fame,

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.”

PopeBeing debarred by his religion from many desirable employments, he opted literature to make his ambition and life motive or work. Dryden was his only master which he mentioned many times. When he was of sixteen year old he has written his “Pastorals” and after few year appeared his “Essay on Criticism”, which made him famous. And with the publication of the Rape of the Lock, in 1712, Pope’s name was known and honored all over England and this boy of 24 years, by the absolute force of his own ambition, had jumped to the leading place in English letters.