Alexander Pope, best known for popularizing the heroic couplet, caught my eye in an English literature class at Michigan State University in the mid-1960s.

I was more interested in reading Pope at the time than learning about Pope because he clearly knew how to do what I call “turning a word.” That is, write a chain of words that captures your attention and conveys a thought so deep that it cannot be ignored.

Pope was a master of this art of writing. You may have read or heard these gems:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Fools rush where angels fear to tread.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

The ends must justify the means.

More than one author has rewritten these thoughts and claimed them for monetary gain. Each of these thoughts could remind us of a surprising truth: someone said it first.

Some experts say England’s William Shakespeare is the most widely read and cited author in history. Many suggest that the Holy Bible is the second. It has been said that British author Agatha Christie’s books have only outsold Shakespeare and the Bible.

Alexander Pope may not have sold as many books, but he has been cited as the second most cited writer in the English language, after William Shakespeare.

Pope (1688-1744), the master of the heroic couplet, is generally regarded as the greatest English poet of the early 18th century. He was widely known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer.

For the uninitiated, the heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming iambic pentameters. Iambic is a line that uses iambs, and an iamb is a metric foot consisting of a short (or unstressed) syllable followed by a long (or stressed) syllable. So there you have it, learning reappears on your computer monitor.

The heading of this article is an example of Pope’s heroic couplet: A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deeply or don’t taste the Pierian source.

Read for a moment, appreciate how good Pope and his verse were, and understand why it would come to my attention:

On bribery: Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.

About churches: Whoever builds a church to God, and not to Fame, will never mark the marble with his Name.

On Curiosity: Someone who is too wise an observer of the affairs of others, such as someone who is too curious in observing the work of bees, will often be piqued by their curiosity.

About the Devil: Satan is now wiser than before, and he tempts by enriching instead of impoverishing.

On education: This education forms the common mind. Just as the branch is bent, the tree is bent.

About expectation: Blessed is he who does not expect anything because he will never be disappointed.

On fashion: don’t be the first to try the new, and don’t be the last to ditch the old.

About the gossip: And everyone who told it added something new, and everyone who heard it added something new too.

About the judgment: It is with our judgments like our clocks, none of them go the same, however, each one believes his own.

About order: Order is the first law of Heaven; and this I confess, Some are and must be greater than the rest.

On pride: That which rules the weak head with the strongest partiality, Is pride, the infallible vice of fools.

On proverbs: Hope springs eternally in the human breast, Man never is, but always to be blessed.

On providence: Destroy all creatures for your sport or pleasure, But cry, if man is unhappy, God is unjust.

To the right: Always do the right thing. That will please some people and amaze the rest.

On self-knowledge: do not trust yourself, but trust your flaws to know, make use of all friends and all enemies.

Of self-sacrifice: Many men have been able to do a wise thing, plus a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

Here is the message: great writing and great writers are eternal for those who seek knowledge and truth. If you don’t care about either of them, then it doesn’t matter. For example:

If today’s generation is on spring break at the beach, drinking and doing drugs, and running around half-naked ready to fuck each other, that’s their business and their perfect right.

My suspicion is that their personal life is so devoid of anything significant that they must make a public display to convince themselves that they are having a life experience. In their effort to elevate superficiality to an art form, they occasionally succeed.

Now back to something worth examining, the life of Alexander Pope, who should inspire not only poets and writers, but also the disabled.

Pope, born in London, was the son of a linen merchant and his wife. Because they were Roman Catholics, he grew up having to deal with the Church of England, which prohibited Catholics from teaching on pain of life imprisonment.

His aunt taught him to read and he was educated in two clandestine Catholic schools which, although illegal, were tolerated in some areas.

Pope suffered from Pott’s disease, a form of tuberculosis that affects the spine. This stunted his growth and deformed his body, perhaps ending his life at age 56. He was only 4 feet 6 inches tall and apparently not very attractive, which may explain why he never married.

Despite his inauspicious start in life, Louis Kronenberger in “Alexander Pope Selected Works” says: “In terms of money and fame, Pope was probably the most successful English poet who ever lived. No other in his day, few in any day. either had that many readers or received near-universal acclaim.”

Pope’s works would not cause him to be forgotten, but the growth of Romanticism in the late 18th century would. Joseph Warton would deny that Pope was ever a “true” and dismiss him as merely a “witty man” and a “sensible man”, thus hastening the demise of the “Age of the Pope”.

It would take until the 1930s to rediscover Alexander Pope and his works. By posting this article to Internet directories, we hope that Alexander Pope and his works will once again take their rightful place among the great works of history. With apologies to a great writer:

So Alexander Pope, who was soon forgotten,

He could finally become a true giant.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley