We'll give it to you straight: Pope was a teeny-tiny guy. Due to health problems he had as a child that affected his growth, he grew up to be under five feet tall. As if that weren't bad enough, he was also a Catholic. (Hey, with a name like Pope, what else could you be?)

Being a Catholic back in the day in England was like being a squirrel among Chihuahuas—not good. That's because the Church of England, the dominant church, suppressed Catholics and excluded them from social and political structures.

But being tiny and Catholic didn't stop Pope. He became one of the leading writers of the Augustan age, thanks largely to his incredibly witty, urbane poetry. He was also known for his translations of the classics: thanks to him, classical works became more accessible to English readers than they ever were before.

The Rape of the Lock

The Rape of the Lock is Pope's most famous work, and it's a prime example of the "mock epic" genre. Basically, it's about a gentleman who steals a lock of hair from a lady. So what, right? Well, that's the point: the content of the poem is trivial, but its style is totally grand.

What makes the poem funny is that everyone in it takes everything that happens totally seriously. The whole thing is a send-up of how silly and trivial high society is, and it's hilarious.

An Essay on Criticism

Here's a strange one: it's an essay on criticism written in the form of a poem. So it's both an essay and a poem.

So what's it all about? Well, it's about the literary age in which Pope lived. It talks about Pope's fellow writers and critics—and let's just say that Pope pretty much has nothing good to say about any of them.

But Pope doesn't just write about his contemporaries here; he's also totally obsessed with classical literature. He praises classical poets all over the place, and he also models the poem itself after the work of the classical author Horace. It's a great example of the way in which Pope and others like him looked to classical writers as role models.

Shmoops:

Alexander Pope's most famous work is his mock-epic poem The Rape of the Lock. Look at how Pope writes about Belinda, the heroine of the poem, in these quotations (Quotes #2 and #3).

Alexander Pope was especially famous for his use of the "heroic couplet" in his poetry. Look at these examples of heroic couplets from "Sound and Sense," a part of his Essay on Criticism.