Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest

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Pope originally wrote

Windsor-Forest

at two different periods in his life and subsequently reshaped the parts into a single poem. The first part (1-290) was initially written in 1704, at the same time as his

Pastorals

, when he was only sixteen. He wrote the second part (291-434) eight years later, in 1712, to herald the “Sacred Peace” and “long-expected” (355) Treaty of Utrecht, the preliminaries for which had been agreed in London in October 1711, but which was not finally ratified until 11 April 1713. Pope worked on these two parts, altering and adding to them, throughout the summer, autumn and winter of 1712. The finished poem was then published on 7 March 1713, a few weeks before the Treaty was finally signed. Pope did not simply join two pieces of separate composition…

2743 words

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "Windsor Forest". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8808, accessed 19 March 2024.]

8808 Windsor Forest 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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