Alexander Pope was born on 21 May 1688 in London, a citizen first of the Kingdom of England and later of the Kingdom of Great Britain. He worked across several roles — poet, writer, translator, satirist, philosopher, and literary historian — and composed in English while also using Latin and Greek. His early education took place at Twyford School, after which he went on to produce a substantial body of work in the genre of poetry.

Pope wrote across a range of forms and subjects throughout his career. An Essay on Criticism and the religious poem Messiah were among his works, as were The Rape of the Lock and Eloisa to Abelard. The Dunciad occupied him across a long stretch of his working life, with versions appearing between 1728 and 1743. He also produced translations of Homer, drawing on his use of Greek and Latin to render those ancient texts into English.

Pope died on 30 May 1744 in Twickenham, nine days after his fifty-sixth birthday. His translations of Homer form a notable part of the record he left behind.