Tags: Poem.
Messiah is a ‘sacred eclogue’ by Alexander Pope composed in 1709. It is based on the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil and is an example of English Classicism’s appropriation and reworking of the genres subject matter and techniques of classical Latin literature.Samuel Johnson while still a student at Oxford University translated Pope’s ‘Messiah’ into Latin hexameters: it was Johnson’s first published work (1731).