Alexander Pope

As the Enlightenment movement was gathering strength in the early 18th century, various challenges to established religious faith were launched. In response, a number of celebrated commentators produced defences of religion and morality, and among these was Alexander Pope....

First published in 1711, An Essay on Criticism was one of Pope's earliest major poems. As the title suggests, it is an exploration of what Pope considered to be the essential aspects of good critical writing....

Alexander Pope wrote the "Pastorals" in 1704 at the age of 16, but it was only in 1709 that the publisher Jacob Tonson included them in his Poetical Miscellanies. In the "Pastorals", Pope develops a theory of the relationship between art and nature....

'The Rape of the Lock' was one of Alexander Pope's most popular poems....