| ItsAlive75 |
08-10-2005 11:48 AM |
Pope's literary career began in 1704, when the playwright William Wycherley, pleased by Pope's verse, introduced him into the circle of fashionable London wits and writers, who welcomed him as a prodigy. He first attracted public attention in 1709 with his Pastorals. In 1711 his Essay on Criticism, a brilliant exposition of the canons of taste, was published. His most famous poem, The Rape of the Lock (first published 1712; revised edition published 1714), a fanciful and ingenious mock-heroic work based on a true story, established his reputation securely. In 1713 Pope published Windsor Forest, which endeared him to the Tories by referring to the Peace of Utrecht. In 1714 his work The Wife of Bath appeared, which, like his The Temple of Fame (1715), was imitative of the works of the same title by the 14th-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1717 a collection of Pope's works containing the most noteworthy of his lyrics was published. Pope's translation of Homer's Iliad was published in six volumes from 1715 to 1720; a translation of the Odyssey followed (1725-1726). He also published an edition of Shakespeare's plays (1725).
He also thought XIII was a big ol' gay.
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