36 Facts About Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope's father was a successful linen merchant in the Strand, London.

Alexander Pope's uncle-in-law was the miniature painter Samuel Cooper, through his mother's sister, Christiana.

Alexander Pope's education was affected by the recently enacted Test Acts, a series of English penal laws that upheld the status of the established Church of England, banning Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, and holding public office on penalty of perpetual imprisonment.

Alexander Pope was taught to read by his aunt and attended Twyford School circa 1698.

Alexander Pope studied many languages, reading works by French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets.

Alexander Pope introduced the young Pope to the ageing playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals.

Alexander Pope remained close friends with Patty until his death, but his friendship with Teresa ended in 1722.

Alexander Pope was already removed from society as a Catholic, and his poor health alienated him further.

Around 1711, Alexander Pope made friends with Tory writers Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club.

Alexander Pope made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.

Alexander Pope lived in his parents' house in Mawson Row, Chiswick, between 1716 and 1719; the red-brick building is the Mawson Arms, commemorating him with a blue plaque.

The money made from his translation of Homer allowed Alexander Pope to move in 1719 to a villa at Twickenham, where he created his-famous grotto and gardens.

Alexander Pope began writing the poem early in his career and took about three years to finish it.

Alexander Pope discusses the laws to which a critic should adhere while analysing poetry, pointing out the important function critics perform in aiding poets with their works, as opposed to simply attacking them.

The final section of An Essay on Criticism discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in an ideal critic, whom Alexander Pope claims is the ideal man.

In 1731, Alexander Pope published his "Epistle to Burlington", on the subject of architecture, the first of four poems later grouped as the Moral Essays.

Alexander Pope's foes claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons.

Alexander Pope meant it as the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics to be put forth in poetic form.

Alexander Pope ascribes this to our limited mindset and intellectual capacity.

Alexander Pope argues that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain of Being", at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world.

The poem is an affirmative statement of faith: life seems chaotic and confusing to man in the centre of it, but according to Alexander Pope it is truly divinely ordered.

Alexander Pope proclaims that man's duty is to strive to be good, regardless of other situations.

Alexander Pope used the model of Horace to satirise life under George II, especially what he saw as the widespread corruption tainting the country under Walpole's influence and the poor quality of the court's artistic taste.

Alexander Pope added as an introduction to Imitations a wholly original poem that reviews his own literary career and includes famous portraits of Lord Hervey, Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull and Addison.

Alexander Pope toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called Brutus, but only the opening lines survive.

Alexander Pope was buried in the nave of St Mary's Church, Twickenham.

Alexander Pope secured a revolutionary deal with the publisher Bernard Lintot, which earned him 200 guineas a volume, a vast sum at the time.

Alexander Pope tried to conceal the extent of the collaboration, but the secret leaked out.

Alexander Pope removed about 1,560 lines of Shakespeare's material, arguing that some appealed to him more than others.

Apart from some minor revisions to the preface, it seems that Alexander Pope had little to do with it.

Alexander Pope was taught to read by his aunt and became a book lover, reading in French, Italian, Latin and Greek and discovering Homer at the age of six.

Some were so virulent that Alexander Pope even carried pistols while walking his dog.

Alexander Pope began having ideas for a patriotic epic in blank verse titled Brutus, but mainly revised and expanded his Dunciad.

Alexander Pope's work was full of references to the people and places of his time, which aided people's understanding of the past.

The post-war period stressed the power of Alexander Pope's poetry, recognising that Alexander Pope's immersion in Christian and Biblical culture lent depth to his poetry.

Between 1953 and 1967 the definitive Twickenham edition of Alexander Pope's poems appeared in ten volumes, including an index volume.