Talk:Alexander Pope
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I changed this: "He was the last major poet to write in traditional rhyming couplets; he developed the heroic couplet beyond that of any previous poet, and essentially exhausted its usefulness for later poets." There's room for disagreement about who's major, but I'd count Keats (Lamia) and Frost ("The Bear", "A Considerable Speck", "The Egg and the Machine", "The Onset", "The Tuft of Flowers"). I don't know whether the current version is true. Does anyone have any information on use of the heroic couplet before and after Pope? —JerryFriedman 20:08, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
140.180.165.138, thanks for your valuable additions today and a happy new year! Could you please try to formulate the opening sentence more neutrally and encyclopedically, though? Or attribute it, or something. I've provisionally tamed the POV (what about Blake?), but I'm sure you can do it better.--Bishonen | Talk 05:16, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just a small change to point up the fact that Cibber replaced Theobald as the 'hero' of the Dunciad rather than simply being "added to the list of dunces". aldiboronti 17:48, 3 Jan 2005
- Yep. Anybody wants to see fuller accounts of this, please compare newly refurbished articles The Dunciad and Colley Cibber. Thanks, aldiboronti!--Bishonen | Talk 19:14, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The notion that Pope was "educated mostly outside "normal" schools and colleges as a result of the penal laws that were in force at the time to uphold the status of the established Church of England." seems anachronistic - it would not have been unusual in that period to have not gone to school. Certainly a catholic family would have made education outside the school system more likely, but I am not sure this comment adds much. --AYArktos 10:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It's not "anachronistic", it's completely accurate.--Folantin 07:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Date of birth
Hello, your article is very good and it helped me to write an essay for university about Pope. But in a German introduction to English Literature I found that his birthday was on the 22th May. So I need to change this. I would also like to add something about his interest into landscape gardening. (unsigned comment by user Daniela Wecker on 9 May)
That's not so sure. Other sites tell he was born on the 21st. Should see... (unsigned comment by IP 212.194.59.142 20 May)
[edit] when was his birthday?
anonymous edited this and other articles saying Pope was born on the 21st instead of the 22nd. I changed it back based on this source, among others. -Lethe | Talk 03:24, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
- It is given as the 21st in the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9060837, as well as the printed edition. I would think that in this case the modern Britannica is probably more reliable than the 1905 edition of The Life of Pope by Samuel Johnson, but I may be wrong. ~ Kalki 00:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
According to the definitive biography by Maynard Mack, Pope was born at 6.45 pm on May 21, 1688.--Folantin 11:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I have the original copy of POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ - THE LIFE OF THE AURTOR, BY DR. JOHNSON from 1830 and the first paragraph states:
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- "ALEXANDER POPE was born in London, May 22, 1688, of parents whose rank or station was never ascertained; we are informed that they were of "gentle blood;" that his father was of a family of which the Earl of Downe was the head; and that his mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq. of York, who had likewise three sons, one of whom had the honour of being killed, and the other of dying, in the service of Charles the First: the third was made a general officer in Spain, from whom the sister inherited what sequestrations and forfeitures had left in the family.
How has this information been accurately discredited by later authors?I already forgot 18:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The New Student's Reference Work was published annually in the 1910s by F. E. Compton and Company in Chicago, Illinois. wikisource The text below is an OCR text that has yet to be proofread.I already forgot 20:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
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- "Pope, Alexander, English poet, was born at London, May 21, 1688, his father being a Roman Catholic and a man of means. Although Pope's early education was irregular and unsystematic, his father retiring from business soon after the son's birth, his application to study must have been close, for even in his juvenile poems are traces of profound thought. In 1711 Pope published his Essay on Criticism, which placed him at once in the front rank of the literary men of his day; and in 1712 appeared the Rape of the Lock, the most imaginative of his poems. Soon after appeared his translation of Homer's Iliad, which brought a fortune of $30,000. (See HOMER). A translation of the Odyssey followed a few years later, and in 1728 he issued the third volume of The Dunciad. The Essay on Man, published in 1734, is a didactic poem, and, although almost wholly deficient in the imaginative quality, is a masterpiece of wit and versification. Pope's command of terse and smooth expression is at its highest here; and it has been well said that this poem contains more familiar quotations than any other poem of equal length in the English language. Pope died at Twickenham, near London, May 30, 1744, leaving behind him a literary fame that has suffered no eclipse in over a century and a half."
[edit] Connecticut, automobile pioneer
Looks like there was another notable person who went with this name. Quote "They have a lovely example: in 1915 the people of Hertford, Connecticut, erected a memorial to a local automobile pioneer called Alexander Pope (not the poet)." [1]
[edit] Dissent
I'm sorry to be cranky, but this article is pretty insufficient for a poet as significant as Shakespeare or Wordsworth. As a poet, it's possible that no one in English matched him for technical skill. As a person, he has an extremely interesting life. As an historical person only is he less interesting than someone like Wordsworth. To have his Pastorals skipped over (see Augustan poetry), to miss out on what each of the Moral Epistles were, to not mention the imitations of Horace and Virgil, to make Rape of the Lock a quick mention, it all goes against my own interests. Unfortunately, it has been an age since I've read Maynard Mack's biography, but I surely hope that someone passing by this article with Mack fresh in his or her head, or someone with an interest in this article's state and has access to a U. library and can go read Mack (and Aubrey Williams's critical work on Pope), can incrementally build this up. I'd love to see Pope's article be a Featured Article, or at least FA quality. Geogre 4 July 2005 14:18 (UTC) (No, this is not on my list.)
- Aye. It would make a nice excuse to visit the local library on a sunny Saturday afternoon! --Ardonik.talk()* 05:07, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
- Yeah, I know it annoys me when I see an article on something I sort of know about, but not quite enough, that could really be improved. But you should do what you can to better it - a little goes a long way on these kinds of things, I find. john k 06:40, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Hello, agreeing with Geogre, I think this article should mention something of the Pope v. Curll lawsuit, which apparently is "a foundational case in English and American copyright law" (so says Mark Rose, in _Authors and Owners_, Harvard University Press, 1993, p.60)? There are 3 scholarly works on this by James McLaverty, and they sound very interesting, colorful, important, etc. See: James McLaverty, "The First Printing and Publication of Pope's Letters", Library 6th ser. 2 1980.
I've added a great deal of information to this article from Mack (though there's still much that could be in there: Lady Mary and Curll, for instance). Apologies to whoever wrote the "Politics" section; I've tried to incorporate it into the biography itself. Pope's politics aren't always clear-cut (he was a Catholic and he often had to keep his cards close to his chest, according to Mack). Hope these revisions help improve this article a bit. Pope deserves decent treatment. --Folantin 15:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Diana
Who is Diana? Her name is mentioned in the image but is linked to disambiguation page.
Clarified as of February 28. I redirected the link to Diana (mythology), the page on the Roman goddess. ~e.o.t.d~ 06:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] External link
Hi, I would like to add an external link to the World of Biography entry to this article. Does anybody have any objections? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jameswatt (talk • contribs) 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Note: This user has added similar requests to link to biographies hosted on the same site to about 50 different articles. Although I believe that these requests were made in good faith, adding the links to all of the articles would be spamming. In addition, the biographies tend to be not very insightful and/or minimally informative, and the webpages contain Google AdSense links.
- A fuller explanation of my own opinion on these links can be found here, if anyone wishes to read it.
- Hbackman 23:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Characters and Observations Mystery?
I am hoping that someone will be able to flesh out my Pope-related article, Characters and Observations. It's about an anonymous handwritten manuscript of aphorisms discovered in the late 1920s. Pope probably owned it, since his name is on the cover, but I wonder if anyone since has determined if he actually wrote it? Thanks in advance. The Sanity Inspector 22:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
