Alexander Pope, born on 21 May 1688 and dead on 30 May 1744, was the supreme English poet of the Augustan age and one of the most technically accomplished writers in the language. His verse made the heroic couplet seem at once inevitable, conversational, polished, and inexhaustibly flexible. In his best work, a pair of rhyming pentameter lines can carry an argument, a joke, a moral judgment, a portrait, a burst of in…
“he seems to have known the world by Intuition, to have look'd thro' humane nature at one glance.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Peace, Wonder
In the pantheon of English literature, few figures loom as large or cast as long a shadow as John Dryden. Born on August 9, 1631, in the village of Aldwincle All Saints in Northamptonshire, England, and dying on May 12, 1700, in London, Dryden lived through one of the most turbulent periods in British history. His lifetime spanned the English Civil War, the execution of Charles I, the Interregnum under Oliver Cromwel…
“The end of poetry is to instruct, and the end of instruction is to please.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
