Alexander Pope,The Full Text of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”
WebAlexander 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 WebApr 24, · Pope picks apart errors that critics commonly make in approaching poetry, either in over- or under-valuing a work. In the poem, Pope argues that critics should look WebSep 21, · These understandings are crucial, he claims, to ensuring that critics can approach others’ writing with fairness and discernment. In the final lines of the poem, WebSep 20, · “An Essay on Criticism” () is a work of both poetry and criticism. Pope attempts in this long, three-part poem, which he wrote when he was twenty-three, to WebHe further suggests that criticism must have a moral sensibility, modesty and caution. Pope warns critics that they avoid bookish knowledge as it results in extravagant ... read more
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Though, there are some specific rules that he ascribes to criticism. The critic, he says, must examine an author as not being familiar with his own capacities but being aware of all aspects of the author. He further suggests that criticism must have a moral sensibility, modesty and caution. Pope warns critics that they avoid bookish knowledge as it results in extravagant language. Poetry and criticism, he suggests, are two branches of art. He keeps them in moral and theological domain too. He also suggests that a poet ought to have critical faculties too so that the creative process is carried out in a balanced and controlled way. His emphasis is on the following nature, the act that relates to wit and judgment which has an overlapping relation as do poetry and criticism. Happiness does not consist in external goods; is kept even by providence, through Hope and Fear; and the good man will have an advantage.
We should not judge who is good, and external goods are often inconsistent with or destructive of virtue. Discussion with others regarding the location of bliss will evoke varied responses. He then makes clear that those who are virtuous and just may die too soon, but their deaths are not caused by their virtue. Humility, Justice, Truth, and Public Spirit deserve to wear a Crown, and they will, but one must wait to receive the rewards of possessing such traits. Pope assembles an honor code for all to follow, as he attempts to convince individuals not to feel jealousy toward others who seem to have more possessions, as these do not lead to bliss. Pope has managed, through various examples, to lead from his opening request for a definition of happiness to the conclusion that virtue equates to that state, and, because virtue is available to all, everyone can enjoy happiness.
As any worthy lesson does, this one bears repeating, and Pope closes with that emphasis:. That REASON, PASSION, answer one great aim; That true SELF-LOVE and SOCIAL are the same; That VIRTUE only makes our BLISS below; And all our Knowledge is, OURSELVES TO KNOW. The main gravamen of the Essay is thus an assault on pride, on the aspiration of mankind to get above its station, scan the mysteries of heaven, promote itself to the central place in the universe. But there is something disturbing about this assumption of authority. Similarly, Pope counsels concentration on the human scale in what is, nonetheless, his cosmological testament.
Milton aspires to be the poet of God, and so indeed does Pope; if the latter is seeking to stifle adventurous mental journeys, he can only do so by giving them a certain amount of weight and interest. Pope seeks a way out of this paradox by contrasting visions: human vision is limited to its own state, but can reason and infer other states from that position. EM, I: 21—8. Again the proposition is that our limited vision cannot see only the limitations of our place in the chain, and not its active dynamism:. EM, I: 57— Our cosmological position is also limited temporally by our blindness to the future, and Pope reminds us of our superiority of knowledge over other creatures on earth, to indicate our own inferiority to creatures we cannot but again, do imagine I: 81—6.
We might imagine, for example, a Heaven. EM, I: 87— Pope discovers this intellectual pride to operate at more or less every level of human experience, including the bodily senses. Why has not Man a microscopic eye For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Pope is resisting the imaginative world opened up by improved microscopic technology, just as his cosmic vision ambivalently absorbs the epochal discoveries in physics made by Newton; his moral point is that Man has the right amount of perception for his state and position in the system, no more and no less.
The reason we cannot, and should not seek to, break this bound or alter our place on the ladder, is correspondingly huge in its theological overtones. Since the system which Pope has imagined is cosmological, if anything steps out of line the entire cosmos is ruined:. Pope works up this dominating, pacifying rhetoric partly out of a sense of his own poetic audacity and its closeness to the aspirations of reason and pride. The second Epistle sets about redeploying those energies of enquiry into the microcosmos of the human mind. Using his favourite device of the telling oxymoron, Man becomes a miniature cosmology which has internalised that war which Milton turns into narrative: he is both Adam and Satan, top and bottom of the scale.
Could he, whose rules the rapid Comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his Mind Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end EM, II: 35—8. Self-love is a kind of id, appetitive, desiring, urging, instigating action; reason is an ego which judges, guides, advises, makes purposeful theenergies of self-love. Without these complementary forces human nature would be either ineffectual or destructive this is the true cosmic drama :. EM, II: 61—6. Across the structure of the epistle, Heaven has replaced science as the artist of the mind, with society as the place in which psychomachic forces operate to a benign ratio. EM, III: 9—
It offers a sort of master-class not only in doing criticism but in being a critic:addressed to those — it could be anyone — who would rise above scandal,envy, politics and pride to true judgement, it leads the reader through a qualifying course. At the end, one does not become a professional critic —the association with hired writing would have been a contaminating one for Pope — but an educated judge of important critical matters. The next six lines ring the changes on the differences to be weighed in deciding the question:. The simple opposition we began with develops into a more complex suggestion that more unqualified people are likely to set up for critic than for poet, and that such a proliferation is serious.
The critical function may well depend on a poetic function: this is after all an essay on criticism delivered in verse, and thus acting also as poetry and offering itself for criticism. Literary Criticism of Alexander Pope. Pope, however, decided during the revision of the work for the Works to divide the poem into three sections, with numbered sub-sections summarizing each segment of argument. This impluse towards order is itself illustrative of tensions between creative and critical faculties, an apparent casualness of expression being given rigour by a prose skeleton. The three sections are not equally balanced, but offer something like the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of logical argumentation — something which exceeds the positive-negative opposition suggested by the couplet format.
The first section 1— establishes the basic possibilities for critical judgement;the second — elaborates the factors which hinder such judgement;and the third — celebrates the elements which make up true critical behaviour. Art should be derived from Nature, should seek to replicate Nature, and can be tested against the unaltering standard of Nature, which thus includes Reason and Truth as reflections of the mind of the original poet-creator, God. In a fallen universe, however, apprehension of Nature requires assistance: internal gifts alone do not suffice. But Pope stood by the essential point that Wit itself could be a form of Judgment and insisted that though the marriage between these qualities might be strained, no divorce was possible.
In the golden age of Greece 92— , Criticism identified these Rules of Nature in early poetry and taught their use to aspiring poets. Pope contrasts this with the activities of critics in the modern world, where often criticism is actively hostile to poetry, or has become an end in itself — Virgil the poet becomes a sort of critical commentary on the original source poet of Western literature,Homer. As well as the prescriptions of Aristotelian poetics,Pope draws on the ancient treatise ascribed to Longinus and known as On the Sublime [12]. Following this ringing prayer for the possibility of reestablishing a critical art based on poetry, Part II elaborates all the human psychological causes which inhibit such a project: pride, envy,sectarianism, a love of some favourite device at the expense of overall design.
The ideal critic will reflect the creative mind, and will seek to understand the whole work rather than concentrate on minute infractions of critical laws:. A perfect Judge will read each Work of Wit With the same Spirit that its Author writ, Survey the Whole, nor seek slight Faults to find, Where Nature moves, and Rapture warms the Mind;. Most critics and poets err by having a fatal predisposition towards some partial aspect of poetry: ornament, conceit, style, or metre, which they use as an inflexible test of far more subtle creations. Pope aims for akind of poetry which is recognisable and accessible in its entirety:.
Pope performs and illustrates a series of poetic clichés — the use of open vowels, monosyllabic lines, and cheap rhymes:. These gaffes are contrasted with more positive kinds of imitative effect:. Again, this functions both as poetic instance and as critical test, working examples for both classes of writer. After a long series of satiric vignettes of false critics, who merely parrot the popular opinion, or change their minds all the time, or flatter aristocratic versifiers, or criticise poets rather than poetry , Pope again switches attention to educated readers, encouraging or cajoling them towards staunchly independent and generous judgment within what is described as an increasingly fraught cultural context, threatened with decay and critical warfare — If the first parts of An Essay on Criticism outline a positive classical past and troubled modern present, Part III seeks some sort of resolved position whereby the virtues of one age can be maintained during the squabbles of the other.
Thereafter, Pope has two things to say. The other is to insinuate an answer. These pairs include and encapsulate all the precepts recommended in the body of the poem. Pope does however cite two earlier verse essays by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, and Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon [13] before paying tribute to his own early critical mentor, William Walsh, who had died in [9]. It is a kind of leading from the front, or tuition by example, as recommended and practised by the poem. From an apparently secondary,even negative, position writing on criticism, which the poem sees as secondary to poetry , the poem ends up founding criticism on poetry, and deriving poetry from the ideal critic.
It is a poem profuse with images, comparisons and similes. Much ofthe imagery is military or political, indicating something of the social role as legislator in the universal empire of poetry the critic is expected toadopt; we are also reminded of the decay of empires, and the potentialdecay of cultures there is something of The Dunciad in the poem. and Joukovsky, N. Categories: Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Poetry. You must be logged in to post a comment. Share this: Facebook WhatsApp Twitter Email Pocket LinkedIn Reddit Tumblr Pinterest Telegram More Print Skype. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment. Loading Comments
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism,
WebHe further suggests that criticism must have a moral sensibility, modesty and caution. Pope warns critics that they avoid bookish knowledge as it results in extravagant WebAlexander 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 WebSep 20, · “An Essay on Criticism” () is a work of both poetry and criticism. Pope attempts in this long, three-part poem, which he wrote when he was twenty-three, to WebApr 24, · Pope picks apart errors that critics commonly make in approaching poetry, either in over- or under-valuing a work. In the poem, Pope argues that critics should look WebSep 21, · These understandings are crucial, he claims, to ensuring that critics can approach others’ writing with fairness and discernment. In the final lines of the poem, ... read more
Morris, David P. All passion results from Self-love:. Terms Privacy GDPR. Pope assembles an honor code for all to follow, as he attempts to convince individuals not to feel jealousy toward others who seem to have more possessions, as these do not lead to bliss. Pope, consequently, attempts to synthesize classical literary traditions with nature. EM, IV: —72 T. The passage can also be read as a warning against shallow learning in general.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that Hope to be thy blessing now. So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; The eternal snows appear already past, alexander pope essay on criticism analysis, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last. His plan worked beautifully, and his usual critics raved about the genius evident in this work by a new poet. From an apparently secondary,even negative, position writing on criticism, which the poem sees as secondary to poetrythe poem ends up founding criticism on poetry, and deriving poetry from the ideal critic. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does.
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