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AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
BY
ALEXANDER POPE,
_WITH INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY NOTES_.
ALEXANDER POPE.
* * * * *
This eminent English poet was born in London, May 21, 1688. His parents
were Roman Catholics, and to this faith the poet adhered, thus debarring
himself from public office and employment. His father, a linen merchant,
having saved a moderate competency, withdrew from business, and settled
on a small estate he had purchased in Windsor Forest. He died at
Chiswick, in 1717. His son shortly afterwards took a long lease of a
house and five acres of land at Twickenham, on the banks of the Thames,
whither he retired with his widowed mother, to whom he was tenderly
attached and where he resided till death, cultivating his little domain
with exquisite taste and skill, and embellishing it with a grotto,
temple, wilderness, and other adjuncts poetical and picturesque. 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 early years were spent at Binfield, within the range of
the Royal Forest. He received some education at little Catholic schools,
but was his own instructor after his twelfth year. He never was a
profound or accurate scholar, but he read Latin poets with ease and
delight, and acquired some Greek, French, and Italian. He was a poet
almost from infancy, he "lisped in numbers," and when a mere youth
surpassed all his contemporaries in metrical harmony and correctness.
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_, an attack on all
poetasters and pretended wits, and on all other persons against whom the
sensitive poet had conceived any enmity. In 1737 he gave to the world a
volume of his _Literary Correspondence_, containing some pleasant
gossip and observations, with choice passages of description but it
appears that the correspondence was manufactured for publication not
composed of actual letters addressed to the parties whose names are
given, and the collection was introduced to the public by means of an
elaborate stratagem on the part of the scheming poet. Between the years
1731 and 1739 he issued a series of poetical essays moral and
philosophical, with satires and imitations of Horace, all admirable for
sense, wit, spirit and brilliancy of these delightful productions, the
most celebrated is the _Essay on Man_ to which Bolingbroke is
believed to have contributed the spurious philosophy and false
sentiment, but its merit consists in detached passages, descriptions,
and pictures. 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.
Pope was of very diminutive stature and deformed from his birth. His
physical infirmity, susceptible temperament, and incessant study
rendered his life one long disease. 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." His literary stratagems, disguises, assertions, denials, and (we
must add) misrepresentations would fill volumes. Yet when no disturbing
jealousy vanity, or rivalry intervened was generous and affectionate,
and he had a manly, independent spirit. As a poet he was deficient in
originality and creative power, and thus was inferior to his prototype,
Dryden, but as a literary artist, and brilliant declaimer satirist and
moralizer in verse he is still unrivaled. He is the English Horace, and
will as surely descend with honors to the latest posterity.
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM,
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709
[The title, _An Essay on Criticism_ hardly indicates all
that is included in the poem. It would have been impossible to
give a full and exact idea of the art of poetical criticism
without entering into the consideration of the art of poetry.
Accordingly Pope has interwoven the precepts of both throughout
the poem which might more properly have been styled an essay on
the Art of Criticism and of Poetry.]
* * * * *
PART I.
'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill,
But of the two less dangerous is the offense
To tire our patience than mislead our sense
Some few in that but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss,
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own
In poets as true genius is but rare
True taste as seldom is the critic share
Both must alike from Heaven derive their light,
These born to judge as well as those to write
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely, who have written well
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true [17]
But are not critics to their judgment too?
Yet if we look more closely we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind
Nature affords at least a glimmering light
The lines though touched but faintly are drawn right,
But as the slightest sketch if justly traced
Is by ill coloring but the more disgraced
So by false learning is good sense defaced
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools [26]
And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools
In search of wit these lose their common sense
And then turn critics in their own defense
Each burns alike who can or cannot write
Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite
All fools have still an itching to deride
And fain would be upon the laughing side
If Maevius scribble in Apollo's spite [34]
There are who judge still worse than he can write.
Some have at first for wits then poets passed
Turned critics next and proved plain fools at last
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learned witlings, numerous in our isle,
As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile
Unfinished things one knows not what to call
Their generation is so equivocal
To tell them would a hundred tongues require,
Or one vain wits that might a hundred tire.
But you who seek to give and merit fame,
And justly bear a critic's noble name,
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know
How far your genius taste and learning go.
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet
And mark that point where sense and dullness meet.
Nature to all things fixed the limits fit
And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the ocean gains.
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away
One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts
Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before,
By vain ambition still to make them more
Each might his several province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.
First follow nature and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same.
Unerring nature still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged and universal light,
Life force and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source and end and test of art
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show and without pomp presides
In some fair body thus the informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole,
Each motion guides and every nerve sustains,
Itself unseen, but in the effects remains.
Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse, [80]
Want as much more, to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide, than spur the muse's steed,
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed,
The winged courser, like a generous horse, [86]
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those rules, of old discovered, not devised,
Are nature still, but nature methodized;
Nature, like liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordained.
Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites,
When to repress and when indulge our flights.
High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed, [94]
And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;
Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize,
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. [97]
Just precepts thus from great examples given,
She drew from them what they derived from Heaven.
The generous critic fanned the poet's fire,
And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then criticism the muse's handmaid proved,
To dress her charms, and make her more beloved:
But following wits from that intention strayed
Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid
Against the poets their own arms they turned
Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned
So modern pothecaries taught the art
By doctors bills to play the doctor's part.
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,
Nor time nor moths e'er spoil so much as they.
Some dryly plain, without invention's aid,
Write dull receipts how poems may be made
These leave the sense their learning to display,
And those explain the meaning quite away.
You then, whose judgment the right course would steer,
Know well each ancient's proper character,
His fable subject scope in every page,
Religion, country, genius of his age
Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise.
Be Homers works your study and delight,
Read them by day and meditate by night,
Thence form your judgment thence your maxims bring
And trace the muses upward to their spring.
Still with itself compared, his text peruse,
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse. [129]
When first young Maro in his boundless mind, [130]
A work to outlast immortal Rome designed,
Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law
And but from nature's fountain scorned to draw
But when to examine every part he came
Nature and Homer were he found the same
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design
And rules as strict his labored work confine
As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line [138]
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem,
To copy nature is to copy them.
Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
For there's a happiness as well as care.
Music resembles poetry--in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach
If, where the rules not far enough extend
(Since rules were made but to promote their end),
Some lucky license answer to the full
The intent proposed that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus a nearer way to take
May boldly deviate from the common track
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend,
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,
Which without passing through the judgment gains
The heart and all its end at once attains.
In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock or hanging precipice.
But though the ancients thus their rules invade
(As kings dispense with laws themselves have made),
Moderns beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end,
Let it be seldom, and compelled by need,
And have, at least, their precedent to plead.
The critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.
I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts
Those freer beauties, even in them, seem faults
Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,
Considered singly, or beheld too near,
Which, but proportioned to their light, or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks and fair array,
But with the occasion and the place comply.
Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. [180]
Still green with bays each ancient altar stands,
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands,
Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, [183]
Destructive war, and all-involving age.
See, from each clime the learned their incense bring;
Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans ring!
In praise so just let every voice be joined,
And fill the general chorus of mankind.
Hail! bards triumphant! born in happier days;
Immortal heirs of universal praise!
Whose honors with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, [193]
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
Oh may some spark of your celestial fire,
The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,
(That, on weak wings, from far pursues your flights,
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes),
To teach vain wits a science little known,
To admire superior sense, and doubt their own!
* * * * *