Alexander Pope
...steadily changing. Things were once done were slowly making way for a new way of thinking (Roberts, and Bisson, 380) . These changes were both visible from England’s politics to religion, freedom and law, from foreign policy to the way military and the navy was organized, from the arts to social and more personal things like marriage courtship and family. Another interesting change was the way in which the social pyramid was viewed and be defined in a way that today, we can look back and call somewhat modern. These were times in which Alexander Pope was born.
Pope was born in London on May 21 1688. His father was a Roman Catholic linen draper, who married a second time. Pope was the only child of this marriage and seems to have been a delicate, gentle, sweet-tempered, and maybe eve rather spoiled child. According to Peter Dixon, Pope's father, the son of an Anglican vicar, had converted to Catholicism, which caused popes family many problems. At that time Catholics were persecuted and suffered from repressive legislation and prejudices. They were not allowed to enter any universities or held public employment. The well-to-do Catholics of Pope’s day lived in an atmosphere of disaffection, political intrigue and evasion of the law, most unfavorable for the development of the frank, courageous, and patriotic spirit (Thomas Marc Parrott Ph.D., ix) . Thus Pope had an uneven education, which was often interrupted. At home, Pope's aunt taught him to read. Latin and Greek he learned from a local priest and later he acquired knowledge of French and Italian poetry. Pope also attended clandestine Catholic schools.
During These years it is said that Pope did nothing but write and read. He roamed through the classic poets translating passages that pleased him. According to Dixon, while still at school, Pope wrote a play based on speeches from the Iliad....
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