Alexander Pope: A Life

Alexander Pope fought many obstacles during his lifetime--tuberculosis of the bone that deformed his spine, hack writers who were jealous of him, a corrupt government--and through it all created some of the greatest poetry of the 18th century. But changing poetic fashions and a self-righteousness among his commentators impaired his reputation. Maynard Mack remedies such trends in the first biography this century covering Pope's whole life. The writing sparkles, the facts are fully documented, and there is something of the detail that helps the reader feel he or she "knows" Pope by the end. We catch something of the courage that it took for Pope to rise from physical and political disabilities that would have crippled lesser individuals, to speak for reason and liberty in the face of enemies like Sir Robert Walpole, an utterly unethical individual who was the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. We also sense the pathos of things that Pope could not transcend: for example, his inability to find romantic intimacy due to his physical deformity. Prof. Mack has crafted a remarkable and informative book that should interest both the scholar and the casual reader