Alexander Pope, who lived from 1688-1744, was an English poet who modeled himself after great poets of the classical past. Verse translations, moral and critical essays, satires, and the development of the heroic couplet, made him the leading poet of his age.
             Pope, born in London, was the son of a cloth merchant. His parents were Roman Catholics, which automatically barred him from England's Protestant universities. Until he was 12 years old, he was educated mainly by priests; afterward, he primarily taught himself. A devastating illness, most likely tuberculosis of the spine, struck him in childhood, leaving him deformed. He never grew taller than 4 ft 6 in and was subject to suffering horrible headaches. Possibly as a result of this condition, he was hypersensitive and exceptionally irritable the rest of his life. He was a very quarrelsome man and attacked his literary contemporaries. To few, he was warm and affectionate; he had a long and close friendship with Irish writer Jonathan Swift.
             The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1734. It is an attempt to rationalize the ways of God to Man, and a warning that man himself is not the center of all things. The two main concerns of Pope were, (1) "What is, in fact, man's nature" and (2) "can that nature be justified by observation?" (White p.43)
             The "Essay" consists of four epistles, addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, and were thought to have derived, to some extent, from some of Bolingbroke's writings. The question was often "raised regarding the relation between the argument of the "Essay on Man" and that of certain prose manuscripts of Pope's 'guide' Bolingbroke." (MacDonald p.132) Many agreed that the poet and his friend in some way combined their intellect to produce the essay. "Pope felt and thought by shocks and electric flashes. He co...