Author Description

Alexander Pope has often been termed the first truly professional poet in English. He had an acute awareness of traditions he had inherited and a clear vision of where he stood in literary history. In this representative selection of Pope's most important work Pat Rogers presents all the major poems and a characteristic sample of his prose, including satires, pamphlets, and periodical writing. Pope's criticism is represented by his preface to his edition of Shakespeare, and the personal side of his work is illustrated by short pasages from his conversations with Joseph Spence and examples of his wide-ranging correspondence. "Peri Bathous" is presented here in full, as well as the 1743 version of the "Dunciad". Some translations are also included. A feature of this volume is that the texts are presented in chronological order so that the "Moral Essays" and the "Imitations of Horace" are restored to their original position in Pope's career.