Senior Viewpoint
Dick Steinberg has resided in the city of Brookfield for 35 years. He served 34 years as municipal judge and has been an attorney for 50 years. He enjoys tennis, golf, biking and creative writing, which includes legal issues, sports, government and people.
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Alexander Pope. A literary genius
Alexander Pope is then third most quoted writer in the English language, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Born in London in 1688 and died in 1744, aged 56, Pope suffered from early childhood with a spinal disease which deformed his body and stunted his growth (4 feet 6 inches tall).
After his formal education he embarked on an extensive campaign of reading despite religious persecution as a Roman Catholic. The Rape of the Lock, 1712, is one of his most popular poems. It is a mock-heroic epic, making fun of a high society quarrel about a Lord who had snipped a lock of hair from a lady's head without her permission.
Pope had been fascinated by Homer whom he translated making Pope the first English poet who could live off the sales of his works alone.
Pope would never go for a walk without the company of his Great Dane, Bounce, and a pair of loaded pistols in his pocket.
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations includes some 212 quotations from Pope. Some quotations from his work has passed so deeply into the English language that they are often taken as proverbial by those who do not know their source.
A few of the most familiar of Pope's quotations are: "to err is human, to forgive, divine"; "for fools rush in where angels fear to tread"; "hope springs eternal in the human breast".
His "Essay on Man", restated in college English literature courses, includes the quote, "the proper study of mankind is man".
(credits to Wikipedia, the complete works of Pope and one of my favorite college subjects)
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