A Pope

Alexander Pope was many things, but above all, he was a survivor. Born in London on May 21, 1688, he entered a world that was not built for a boy like him. His family was Roman Catholic at a time when that faith all but guaranteed exclusion from the institutions of power, education, and polite society. Thanks to the penal laws of the day, Pope could not attend university, hold public office, or even reside within ten miles of London or Westminster. On top of that, he suffered from a severe case of Pott disease, a form of tuberculosis that attacked his spine, stunted his growth, and left him physically deformed and often in pain. He grew to just four feet six inches tall, with a hunchback and a frail constitution. But what he lacked in height and health, he more than made up for in genius, wit, and relentless drive.

Denied a formal education, Pope taught himself. Latin, Greek, French, Italian—he devoured them all. By the age of twelve, he was writing poetry. His early work Ode on Solitude and a paraphrase of Thomas à Kempis showed precocious skill. His first published poems, the Pastorals, appeared in 1709 in Jacob Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies and quickly caught the attention of London’s literary elite. Two years later, he published An Essay on Criticism. It was part literary theory, part poetic manifesto, and entirely brilliant. That was the poem that gave us, among other lines, “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” and “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

Pope was not simply a writer. He was a craftsman. His tools were heroic couplets and biting satire, and he wielded them like a surgeon with a scalpel—precise, sharp, and deadly. But he also had an artist’s touch, evident in The Rape of the Lock, his mock-epic masterpiece first published in 1712 and expanded in 1714. Inspired by a real-life spat between two Catholic families, Pope elevated a petty squabble over a stolen lock of hair into an epic battle of beauty and vanity. He skewered the superficiality of high society with elegance and humor, never losing his affection for the world he mocked.

His star rose quickly, but not without friction. He briefly allied with Whigs like Addison and Steele, contributing to The Spectator, but eventually broke with them. His friendship with Tory figures like Swift, Bolingbroke, and Arbuthnot proved more enduring. That tension deepened when Pope launched one of the boldest literary ventures of the age: a verse translation of Homer. The Iliad came first, published between 1715 and 1720. It was followed by the Odyssey, completed in 1726 with help from William Broome and Elijah Fenton. Though Pope only translated twelve of the Odyssey’s twenty-four books, he originally tried to conceal his collaborators’ roles. The translation earned him praise, some controversy, and most importantly, financial independence. He reportedly made around £10,000 from the project—a fortune in his time.

With his newfound wealth, Pope moved in 1719 to a villa in Twickenham, where he designed elaborate gardens and built his famous grotto. But retirement was not in his nature. His pen stayed sharp, and he used it against what he saw as the dunces of the literary world. The Dunciad, first published anonymously in 1728 and later expanded, was a blistering satire aimed at hacks, critics, and cultural mediocrities. He originally targeted Lewis Theobald, who had mocked Pope’s flawed edition of Shakespeare, and later replaced him with Poet Laureate Colley Cibber. The poem cemented Pope’s reputation as English literature’s most lethal satirist. Some of his victims threatened violence, and Pope took to walking with a Great Dane and carrying pistols.

But Pope was not merely a grudge-holder. He sought something greater: an understanding of the human condition. In the 1730s, under the influence of Bolingbroke, he wrote An Essay on Man. The poem explored mankind’s place in the universe, the balance between reason and faith, and the limits of human understanding. It was ambitious. It was controversial. Critics accused him of fatalism and theological confusion. Pope responded with The Universal Prayer, a moving, non-sectarian affirmation of divine order and human humility.

Through it all, Pope remained a loyal son, a devoted friend, and a private man. He never married, though his affection for Martha Blount, whom he met around 1707, lasted until his death. He maintained close ties with fellow Tory intellectuals and spent his final years revising his works, including The Dunciad, which received a final update in 1743. His health, always fragile, continued to decline. He died on May 30, 1744, at his home in Twickenham, having received the last rites of the Catholic Church. He was buried in St. Mary’s Church in Twickenham beside his parents.

In life, Pope made enemies—by design. But he also made English poetry more precise, more elegant, and more fearless. He turned personal limitation into artistic liberation. His couplets still sting and sing today. In a world full of empty rhetoric, Alexander Pope reminds us that wit is best served with wisdom, and that truth, even when it hurts, is the highest form of art.