Introduction: An Essay on Criticism is one of the first
major poems written by the English writer,
Alexander Pope(1688–1744), published in 1711 when the author was 22
years old. It is the source of the famous quotations "To err is human; to
forgive, divine", "A little learning is a dang'rous thing"
(frequently misquoted as "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing"),
and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". The first fragmentary
drafts of the work were written in Abberley in 1707. Composed in heroic
couplets (pairs of adjacent rhyming lines of iambic pentameter) and written in
the Horatian mode of satire, it is a verse essay primarily concerned with how
writers and critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope's contemporary
age.
The verse "essay" was not an uncommon form in the
eighteenth-century poetry, deriving ultimately from classical forebears
including Horace's Ars Poetica and Lucretius' De rerum Natura. Throughout the
poem, Pope refers to ancient writers such as Virgil, Homer, Aristotle, Horace
and Longinus. This is a testament to his belief that the "Imitation of the
ancients" is the ultimate standard for taste. Pope also says, "True Ease
in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,/ As those move easiest who have learn'd
to dance" (362–363), meaning poets are made, not born. As is usual in
Pope's poems, the essay concludes with a reference to Pope himself. William
Walsh, the last of the critics mentioned, was a mentor and friend of Pope who
had died in 1708. This is in reference to the spring in the Pierian Mountains
in Macedonia, sacred to the Muses. The first line of this couplet is often
misquoted as "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".
An Essay on Criticism was famously and fiercely attacked by
John Dennis, who is mentioned mockingly in the work. Consequently, Dennis also
appears in Pope's later satire, The Dunciad. This work of literary criticism
borrowed from the writers of the Augustan Age.
The poem received much attention and brought Pope a wider circle of
friends, notably Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who were then collaborating
on The Spectator. The first of the poem’s three sections opens with the
argument that good taste derives from Nature and that critics should imitate
the ancient rules established by classical writers. The second section lists
the many ways in which critics have deviated from these rules. In this part,
Pope stressed the importance of onomatopoeia in prosody, suggesting that the
movement of sound and metre should represent the actions they carry. The final
section, which discusses the characteristics of a good critic, concludes with a
short history of literary criticism and a catalogue of famous critics.
Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" seeks to lay down rules of
good taste in poetry criticism, and in poetry itself. Structured as an essay in
rhyming verse, it offers advice to the aspiring critic while satirizing
amateurish criticism and poetry.
Joseph Addison, who considered the poem ‘a Master-piece’,
declared that its tone was conversational and its lack of order was not
problematic: ‘The Observations follow one another like those in Horace’s Art of
Poetry, without that Methodical Regularity which would have been requisite in a
Prose Author’ (Barnard 1973: 78).
About Poet: Alexander Pope, this eminent English poet was
born in London, May 21, 1688. His parents were Roman Catholics. In this, famous
villa Pope was visited by the most celebrated wits, statesmen and beauties of
the day, himself being the most popular and successful poet of his age. His
pastorals and some translations appeared in 1709, but were written three or
four years earlier. These were followed by the Essay on Criticism, 1711; Rape
of the Lock (when completed, the most graceful, airy, and imaginative of his
works), 1712-1714; Windsor Forest, 1713; Temple of Fame, 1715. In a collection
of his works printed in 1717 he included the Epistle of Eloisa and Elegy on an
Unfortunate Lady, two poems inimitable for pathetic beauty and finished
melodious versification. From 1715 till 1726 Pope was chiefly engaged on his
translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, which, though wanting in time Homeric
simplicity, naturalness, and grandeur, are splendid poems.
In 1728-29, he published his greatest satire—the Dunciad. In
1737, he gave to the world a volume of his Literary Correspondence, containing
some pleasant gossip and observations. A fourth book to the Dunciad, containing
many beautiful and striking lines and a general revision of his works, closed
the poet's literary cares and toils. He died on the 30th of May, 1744, and was
buried in the church at Twickenham. He was, as his friend Lord Chesterfield
said, "the most irritable of all the genus irritabile vatum, offended with
trifles and never forgetting or forgiving them." He died at Chiswick, in
1717. Nonetheless, though Pope’s oppositions divide, they also keep within a
single framework different categories of writing: Pope often seems to be addressing
poets as much as critics.
Themes: Part of a longer poem on artistic and critical
taste, "A little learning is a dangerous thing" contrasts the shallow
arrogance of novice critics (or artists) with the informed humility of their
more experienced counterparts. According to the poem's speaker, people who have
learned only a "little" about the arts are dangerously prone to
overconfidence, because they don't know how much they don't know. The speaker
argues that it's "dangerous" to learn only a "little" about
the arts because limited understanding breeds overconfidence and faulty
judgment. The speaker warns that if readers don't "Drink deep" from
"the Pierian spring"—the mythical fountain of the Muses, Greek
goddesses of artistic inspiration—they won't really "taste" it at
all.
Important Quotes: "Tis hard to say if greater want of
skill appear in writing or in judging ill." "Nature affords at least
a glimmering light the lines though touched but faintly are drawn right."
About the Poem: Pope expounds on the qualities of a good
critic and the principles of literary criticism. He elucidates that taking
small sips will lead to intellectual inebriation as a little knowledge about
arts makes us arrogant by fostering a false sense of superiority. The inexperienced youths have limited
perspectives and can hardly comprehend the depth or complexity of the subjects.
The “towering Alps” symbolize the challenges and ambitions
individuals face in their pursuit of knowledge, creativity, or mastery. The
“Eternal Snows” represent the most challenging aspects of the journey,
initially appearing conquerable. The cyclical nature of challenges and
accomplishments are highlighted, emphasizing the importance of humility,
caution, and perseverance. Part one seems to begin by setting poetic genius and
critical taste against each other, while at the same time limiting the
operation of teaching to those ‘who have written well’ (EC, 11–18). Pope’s
"Nature" is certainly not some pantheistic, powerful nurturer,
located outside social settings, as it would be for Wordsworth, though like the
later poets Pope always characterises Nature as female, something to be quested
for by male poets.
Important Topics to Know:
• Horace's Ars Poetica
• Lucretius' De rerum Natura
•
Augustan Age
• Age
of enlightenment
• It
collaborating on The Spectator
•
Literary Correspondence
Mimetic theory:
Originally developed by philosopher René Girard, posits that
human desires are not intrinsic but imitative. According to the theory, people
desire things not because of their inherent value, but because others desire
them. This imitation leads to rivalry and conflict, as individuals or groups
compete for the same objects or goals.
Mimetic theory is a philosophical concept that has a wide
range of meanings in literary criticism and philosophy, including imitation,
representation, and the act of expression. It is the first work which is not
written in a prose form. It's written in mode of satire. This essay is
neo-classical in nature. Neo-classical: it expresses when you are talking about
the same views of an ancients work in a work.
His Points: 1) Why are bad critics Harmful?
Horace's arts
Quintilian
Q: Critically explain the Wit and Nature of Pope’s “Esssay
on Criticism.”
An Essay on Criticism is one of the first major poems
written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688–1744), published in 1711
when the author was 22 years old. It is the source of the famous quotations
"To err is human; to forgive, divine", "A little learning is a
dang'rous thing" (frequently misquoted as "A little knowledge is a
dang'rous thing"), and "Fools rush in where angels fear to
tread". The criticism of nature and wit often explores how natural
elements, and human intellect are portrayed and judged in literature or philosophy.
It critiques the balance between the raw beauty of nature and the
sophisticated, sometimes flawed, expressions of wit, emphasizing their
respective roles in shaping human experience and understanding.
"Nature" and "Wit," and by which he
projects, if not a unified critical argument, a unified sensibility—in the
words of a recent study by Patricia Meyer Spacks, "a system of feeling and
belief concerning broader issues than doctrine." An Essay on Criticism
makes possible a renewed approach to its enduring and often elusive power.
Pope's primary injunction, "First follow NATURE," establishes Nature
as a principle of order by which we may "frame" our judgment, and as
a principle of creative energy, that "Light" which imparts
"Life, Force, and Beauty" to all. Throughout the poem, Pope
constantly juxtaposes images of control and energy as manifestations of Man's
attempt to follow Nature. Charles Sanders suggests that Nature itself may be
understood as embodying a "mean or concord between reason and imagination,
between the cautionary and the expansive, between Judgment and Wit."
One of the poem's most controversial couplets suggests the
latter by insisting on a single principle, Wit, to encompass the energy:
"Some, to whom Heav'n in Wit has been profuse, Want as much more, to turn
it to its use." More generally, others have noted that Pope often assigns
to wit a divine creative power similar to the Romantic Imagination, and that
his concept of Nature as a principle of wholeness implies a unity of control and
energy in the Art that follows Nature. William Empson terms it, a "drag
towards the drawing room."
Nature as end is the goal or final cause to which Art
aspires, reinforcing the idea explicit in imagery of Nature as the model to be
copied by the poet-painter—if, of course, he is not wanting in the Art of which
Nature is the Source. On the other hand, Plotinus’ God from whom all created
things emanate—including Man's Art. As in An Essay on Man, Nature's bounds but
manifest the creating power that fills her, so in An Essay on Criticism
Nature's "Beauty" (traditionally associated with form or forma) and
her "Force" unite with the "Life" that animates her. Nature
is the Source of Art that follows the larger pattern in microcosm and works as
a soul informing "some fair Body."
The injunction to "follow NATURE" uses the image
of Nature as a vast whole to define Man's most obvious limitation. The same
image of incompletion and resulting confusion is developed at length in the
famous "Alps on Alps" passage as the young mind, attempting to
comprehend the "increasing" plenitude of Art and Nature. It fails to
see the "Lengths behind" and finds "New, distant Scenes of
endless Science rise!" Man properly in the hierarchy can do no more than
follow Nature. The "follow NATURE" passage itself, whose opening
injunction to "frame" your judgment appears as a corrective to the
"pretending Wit," actually raises the End Nature represents as our
ultimate goal.
Man's "pretending Wit," develops the image of
Nature's pattern that wit should follow, and Nature fragile approximations of
her perfect pattern. In An Essay on Criticism, yet another important analogy of
the creative process and its limitations, the analogy of the poet as painter
that, starting from the "glimm'ring Light" and "Lines"
drawn by Nature, appears throughout the poem in frequent images of sketching,
tracing, and designing. "Fools Admire, but Men of Sense Approve"
roughly echoes Horace's Art of Poetry and more broadly the rational Stoic
doctrine Nil Admirari.
God as the moving soul generates the form that brings
Nature's "Life, Force, and Beauty" into being; God as the Master
Artist traces the design that perfectly realizes his "bright Idea."
At one point, for example, Pope advises the critic to "regard the Writer's
End / since none can compass more than they Intend." Nature's larger
bounds, the ultimate End of Art, are the implied standard, but insofar as the
writer's capacity to intend, that is, to direct his mind to and apprehend the
Source of Art, is limited, so is his ability to reach out to that End. Virgil's
drawing, that is to say, his tracing of his design from "Nature's
Fountains," as simultaneously a drawing upon Nature's energy.
The pattern suggests yet another shade of meaning to Nature
as the End of Art: If the artist could trace "naked Nature," he would
be beyond the limits of mere art. "True Wit," however, is not simply
suitable dress as opposed to gaudy ornament. John Donne, in The Extasie, for
example, speaks of our blood laboring "to beget / Spirits, as like soules
as it can."
In conclusion, Pope’s
“Essay on criticism” meticulously unravels the complex interplay between
nature, wit, and the art of criticism, and delivering timeless insights into
the essence of poetic and literary excellence. Wit, in Pope's view represents
the intellectual prowess required to interpret and appreciate nature's
subtleties. Pope's central thesis revolves around the notion that genuine
criticism is rooted in a profound respect for nature—both the natural world and
the inherent nature of human creativity. Dr. Emily Thornton expresses, “Pope
suggests that just as nature operates through balance and proportion, so should
literary works reflect these principles.”
Related Woks:
1. "An Essay on Man" by Alexander Pope
2. "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope
3. "Of the Standard of Taste" by David Hume
4. "The Critic" by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
5. "The Dunciad" by Alexander Pope
Important commentary on the Poem:
6. Harold Bloom's
analysis explores, “Pope's dual role as both a poet and critic, examining how
"An Essay on Criticism" reflects his views on poetic and critical
standards.”
7. A. W. Schlegel expresses, “a detailed study of the
historical and literary context in which Pope wrote his essay, as well as its
impact on subsequent literary criticism.”
8. M. H. Abrams, “analysis of the philosophical
underpinnings of Pope’s criticism, placing his work within the broader context
of Enlightenment thought.”
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