Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was called “the only important writer of his generation who was solely a man of letters.”  He was painter as well as a writer.  Pope said Anne Finch is “better than all the other female wits and hence a lonely exception.”  He thought women were limited to “pleasure and power.”  Anne Finch responded to his comment, saying “Men make bad mistakes when they underestimate women’s power.”  Pope was master of style, metrics, language, and satire.  He was controversial and made enemies who wrote criticism of his works in “pamphlets, satires, and squibs in the journals his entire literary career.”  His audience was mostly men, because he was controversial to women.  He was the first write to build a career upon his works.  He wrote satires of women and responded to female authors.  He wrote letters, a mock epic, with a visual imagery of nature.  He moved on to subjects that were “philosophical, ethical, and political.”