Running like a thread through Pope’s life is the fact that he led a life marred by chronic illness. The impact of pain and sickness throughout his life is, of course, impossible to measure either in terms of sheer living with all its implications for his emotional and social dealings; his vision of the world and his dealing in it but also in his work. Both Johnson and Sitwell in their accounts of Pope’s life saw the importance of physical deformity and endemic illness to the progress of his life.
The experience of long-term illness and chronic pain is under told, I think. It is not surprising that when Edith Sitwell came to reflect on Johnson’s biography and her own view of Pope, she chose to stress how our own humanity should inform our opinion of the man and his genius. Her own experience of physical pain and medical interventions must have given her additional insight.
The Solitary Reader 