A classic poet now studied and admired by many, Alexander Pope is famous for his satires which are enjoyed to this day. His best-known work includes The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism. Active in the 18th century, he is considered a leader of the Neoclassical movement and poets will recognise him as the “master of the heroic couplet”.
Pope also spent time translating important works from Greek author Homer. He is generally considered one of the greatest English poets and had a rather interesting personal life too.
Read on to find out 11 interesting facts about Alexander Pope.
11 Interesting Facts about Alexander Pope
1. Pope is the second-most quoted writer in the English language
Alexander Pope’s poetry and famous sayings are extremely popular to this day, a well-known fact about Alexander Pope. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations places him second only to William Shakespeare. Some of his verses are now idioms in common speech, e.g. “damning with faint praise”.
2. He was a Catholic – and this made his education difficult
Pope was born a Catholic at a time when the Church of England banned Catholics from teaching and studying in university, as well as voting or holding public office. This was part of legislation passed under the Test Acts. As a result, he was taught by his aunt and ended up in two Roman Catholic schools in London. These were also illegal, but tolerated, so he didn’t go to prison as a result!
3. Pope’s health was very bad
Even from a young age, Alexander Pope had bad health. He suffered from Pott disease which is a form of tuberculosis affecting the spine. As a result, his growth was stunted and he developed a hunchback. He also had breathing difficulties, eye inflammation, and high fever. His poor health made it even harder for him to integrate in society, on top of his Catholic roots, a sad fact about Alexander Pope.
4. He rarely left the house without a gun and his dog
His satire made him lots of enemies and he developed a slight paranoia, after also being advised by friends to not leave his house on his own. This was especially the case after a failed attack by the son of critic John Dennis. Pope therefore carried a brace of pistols and brought with him his dog, a Great Dane called Bounce.
5. Pope lived in a lavish London home
From his earnings after translating Homer, Alexander Pope actually made a good living. This meant that he was able to live in a villa in Twickenham in London, complete with a grotto and lovely gardens, an interesting fact about Alexander Pope.
6. Three of the moons of Uranus are named after characters from his poetry
Alexander Pope’s best-known poem is The Rape of the Lock and in it, the heroine Belinda and two Sylphs, Umbriel and Ariel, inspired the naming of the satellites of the planet Uranus. All the 27 known satellites of Uranus are named after literary characters, but it’s interesting that the other 24 all owe their names to Shakespeare. Clearly, someone was a fan of Pope when they named them!
7. Many famous phrases originate from Pope’s work
We use a lot of phrases and idioms which first appeared in Pope’s poems. For example, the line “To err is human; to forgive, divine” come from Alexander Pope’s work.
The popular film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind owes its title to Pope’s poem Eloisa to Abelard.
Finally, the phrase “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” is extremely well-known and has been used everywhere from Hollywood movies to everyday life. It comes from Pope’s work An Essay on Criticism.
8. He cured his headaches with coffee
Ok, this one is a bit out there… Samuel Johnson used to say that Alexander Pope inhaled the steam of coffee to cure headaches., an interesting fact about Alexander Pope. Pope called this “Mocha’s happy tree”. This might just be connected to the rising popularity of coffee during his time, especially among English tea-drinkers. Samuel Johnson was known for drinking extremely large amounts of tea in one sitting, so it’s only normal that he’d have found Pope’s love of coffee peculiar. As for Pope, he advised drinking strong coffee on a regular basis.
9. His nickname was “the Wasp of Twickenham”
Because of his satirical works, Alexander Pope didn’t make many friends among the famous people of his age. For example, he wrote The Dunciad as a comic version of Virgil’s Aeneid and basically ridiculed everyone he didn’t like: the stupid, the tasteless, the incompetent.
This will have caused his many enemies to be created (as mentioned above).
10. His skull may have been exhumed
Upon his death, Alexander Pope was buried in the nave of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin at Twickenham, next to his mother. There are rumors that his skull was dug up afterwards, and bought to be examined by phrenologists. This has fed into a belief that his spirit now haunts the church.
11. He took three years to finish one poem
It might sound excessive, but some of Pope’s works took a long time to be published, a crazy fact about Alexander Pope. One of the longest such periods was for his work An Essay on Criticism, which took three years from the start to the publication date.
Conclusion
Alexander Pope’s work is considered essential to the development of Neoclassical poetry in the 18th century and his satire is second to none in English poetic history. His writings are now celebrated by scholars and he also made important contributions to the culture of his time by translating Homer’s works.
Even though he had many enemies during his lifetime, it appears that Pope also had a good number of friends and he is even rumoured to have had some liaisons with ladies of the time, even though he never got married. In any case, he wrote some witty letters which have been found after his lifetime.
And there you have it – the essential list of facts about Alexander Pope, from the best to the lesser known!
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