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Article: Pope, Alexander (1688–1744)
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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POPE, ALEXANDER (1688
–
1744)
POPE, ALEXANDER
(1688
–
1744), English poet, translator, and critic. A celebrity not only in fact but also by profession, Alexander Pope was the unmatched superstar of English neoclassical literature and arguably the first author in England to make his living exclusively through literary talent. During a comparatively short life focused on literary and cultural activities, Pope alternately defined, improved, invented, satirized, critiqued, and reformed the genres and conventions of early-eighteenth-century British verse.
Born in 1688 amidst a "Glorious Revolution" that put an end to the absolutist claims of Stuart monarchs and set Britain on a ...