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What caused Joseph Addison's disagreement with Alexander Pope?
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Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison, oil painting by Michael Dahl, 1719; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The primary cause of the disagreement between Joseph Addison and Alexander Pope was Addison’s support for a rival translation of the Iliad produced by Thomas Tickell in 1715, which angered Pope.1
This conflict left a lasting impression on Pope, who later characterized Addison as a narcissistic and envious man of letters in his 1735 work, "An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot."1