Alexander Pope published a poem titled "An Essay on Man: Moral Essays and Satires" between 1733 and 1734. The opening line, "Awake, St. John," refers to Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, which is pronounced, "Bull-en-brook." In the opening lines of Paradise Lost, John Milton claims that he will "justify the methods of God to men," and this is an attempt to "vindicate the ways of God to man" (l.16) (1.26). It is focused on the natural order that God established for mankind. Man cannot protest about his place in the great chain of being since he cannot understand God's designs (ll. 33–34). Instead, he must accept that "Whatever is, is right," a subject that Voltaire parodied in Candide (1759). It spread optimistic thought more broadly than any other book throughout England and the rest of Europe. Pope intended for his Essay on Man and Moral Epistles to serve as the constituent pieces of poetic ethical philosophy. Ethic Epistles and Moral Essays are a couple of additional names for Moral Epistles. An Essay on Man was widely praised when it was first published in Europe. The most majestic didactic poetry is ever written in any language.
One of the most well-known English writers of the early 18th century, Alexander Pope (21 May 1688–30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era. Pope, a proponent of Augustan literature, translated Homer and is most known for his satirical and discursive poetry, such as The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism. He is also noted for his work in the Augustan movement. Pope is the second most quoted author in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare, and several of his verses have become part of everyday speech. On May 21, 1688, during the Glorious Revolution's year, Alexander Pope was born in London. In London's Strand, his father Alexander Pope, who lived from 1646 to 1717, owned a prosperous linen business. His mother, Edith (1643–1733), was a York-born descendant of William Turner, Esquire. They were both Catholics. Samuel Cooper, a well-known miniature painter, was married to his mother's sister. A philosophical poem in heroic couplets called An Essay on Man was written between 1732 and 1734. The Pope intended it to serve as the focal point of a system of ethics that would be presented in poetic form.
