Notes on Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism”
Keep in mind that Pope is speaking both to writers, about what makes good writing, and to critics, about what makes good criticism. The poem is doing double duty (all of it amounts to literary theory). In the first few lines he might be addressing the relationship between the two—whether being a good critic nurtures or promotes good writing and whether being a good writer helps one somehow be a good critic—but if he is I can’t quite make out what that claim is, in that regard.Having said that, I suppose there’s a logic to the double analysis: explaining what makes good creative writing probably helps critics identify it and develop good instincts for identifying it; and explaining what makes good criticism may help creative writers know what skills to develop to write well, and it may help them be better self-critics. Something similar to that dynamic might be going on in our creative writing workshops. I would like to think, for example, that I model for my students Pope’s directive, in Part II stanza 18, to read a text in the spirit in which it was written, to be a generous reader, reading “with the grain” so to speak, to try to detect what the writer’s intention is and go w/ that intention, rather than blindly ignore it or consciously resist it. I contend that if we can internalize that generous attitude about how to interact w/ texts, then we creative writers might be able to apply it to ourselves when we write. That generosity to ourselves, as this argument goes, would help us in multiples ways: for one, it could possibly fend off writer’s block, which is often caused by applying impossible standards for ourselves; it could also help us be more open to our own ideas, as we wouldn’t be as quick to dismiss ones that seem outrageous or out of our range—in other words, it would help us be more creative and possibly more brave in following through on that initial creativity. (As for my claim that I model this generosity in workshops, alas, I may not be displaying that generosity enough for it to be perceived—or I unknowingly don’t really have that intention, that I’m deluding myself; or students may simply misperceive my intention, if I indeed have it. It’s difficult to achieve that ideal when the dynamic has that many variables.)At any rate, if I see where he addresses that dynamic, I’ll pt. it out.
PART I.
stanza 1. hard to say if bad criticism is worse than bad writing, but of the two bad writing is less harmful than bad criticism. there are ten bad critics for every bad writer; a bad writer creates lots of bad criticism. (?) [i don’t know why, then, according to his reasoning, bad writing is not ultimately more harmful, since one bad writer multiplies bad criticism ten-fold. whatever.]
2. just as there are genius writers, there are genius critics, blessed by nature.
3. most critics have some natural ability, but it can be spoiled by adherences to fads, or by self-serving, foolish, spiteful motives.
4.he gives us here a litany of different types of foolish critics. bad critics, he seems to be saying, are bad b/c they don’t know what they are, don’t understand their natural place in the literary chain of being, so to speak.
5.to be a good critic, know your own limits. [a common 18th century directive: be mindful of your limitations—derived from the notion that we all have our natural place in the great chain of being and we should find it and settle in to it, and as a result all will be hunky-dory.]
6. nature provides a natural balance, so keep to what you do well.
7. --so follow nature in yr criticism; there’s an art to it that, if followed, will serve its proper function. [sounds very Taoist—follow the way, Luke, and your powers will reveal themselves. In the Tao Te Ching is a verse that goes: “The sage contends with no one and thus no one can contend with her.” (no gender designation in Mandarin, I’ve been told.) that sounds a bit like Pope here.
--let your intelligence be guided by your judgment, and vice-versa.
8. nature naturally restrains inappropriate impulses.
9. the ancient Greeks were right in drawing the precepts of writing from good examples of literature [as Aristotle did], but then they turned on the poets [possibly referring to Plato’s banishment of poets?]. Recent critics and theorists have critiqued the ancients just to show off and some “explain the meaning away.” (?)
10. don’t critique until you know your classics, specifically Homer & Virgil.
11. let your maxims result from your study of the ancients, and let yrself be inspired by Virgil (“the Matuan Muse”).
12. following the ancients is following nature. [an interesting twist on mimeticism: a conflation of classic mimeticism and something like inter-textuality.]
13. some beautiful works of art cannot be explained or described by precepts—their beauty is its own precept. so some greats can work outside the rules, still achieving something sublime, but to “Moderns” he says: be careful emulating them; veer from the rules sparingly. [i don’t know what the last two lines are saying, maybe something like: if you veer from the rules, and yr famous, critics will make from your work new precepts (?)]
14. some critics fault the masters, but we should trust the masters; they have their own ways and are always great. the last two lines reference Horace’s judgment, as you may recall, that Homer sometimes “nods”; P. here is saying Homer never nods—if we think so, we are “dreaming” (i.e., deluded, but a nice conflation of that meaning & a reference to nodding off to sleep).
15. P. here hailing the ever-increasing value of the masters’ texts, universally acclaimed. toward the end of the stanza he instructs us to doubt ourselves before we doubt them.
PART II.
16. Starting in on an explanation of the causes of bad criticism, P. says pride rules them all, and nature has provided us w/ a lot of it. Pride fills the void left by an absence of thought. Avoid pride with “right reason” and “truth” will “break upon us.” so don’t trust yrself [that yr own pride isn’t rearing its ugly head] and use the judgments of others (and your enemies’ [!]) to help you avoid being prideful.
17. --famous lines here: “A little learning is a dang’rous thing;/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:...” That is, allowing undergraduatesto talk in class, or write at all, is, uh, risky. Don’t write (don’t taste the “Pierian spring”), he’s arguing, until you’ve studied extensively. [you might be interested to know he was only 22 when he wrote this poem.]
--later in the stanza: the store of knowledge is so great that the more we learn the more we understand how much more is to be learned.
18. Read and judge in the spirit in which the text was written. judge w/ equanimity. esp. important: we should read holistically; don’t let the defective parts distract you from the beauty of the whole.
19. in the same spirit as the directives in stanza 18, go w/ the writer’s intention. don’t judge according to ‘minor’ rules.
20. don’t worry about following rules to the t.
21. a dialogue illustrating this debate. (“Stagyrite” denotes Aristotle—a reference to where he, A., was born.)
22. it is small-minded to adhere to rules too much.
23. this is a stanza about style:
--don’t overdo your language w/ wild conceits.:
--in lines 297-8 is a famous neoclassical definition of poetry: “True wit is nature to
advantage dressed; What oft’ was thought, but ne’er so well expressed;....” Again, very indicative of 18th century thinking: truth slash nature is already perfect and as it were “in the air”—everybody’s already thinking it; you just have to present it (dress it) and everyone will recognize it b/c they were already thinking it.
--then: some works are too fancy for their own good.
--then: don’t be pretentious w/ false eloquence.
--then:make your conceits ‘suitable’: avoid language that draws attention to itself.
--then: don’t mimic too literally the ancients.
24. this is a stanza about prosody (technical aspects of meter). It’s delightfully witty—i suggest you read it, cuz the lines mimic metrically what he’s saying, so if you only read these notes you’ll miss out on the cleverness and remarkable skill w/ which he’s articulating these precepts:
--some people judge a poem by its meter, “as some to church repair/Not for the doctrine, but the music there.”
--in the next several lines he comments on several metrical techniques: syllabics, open vowels, expletives, “slow” diction, trite sounds, rhymes, bad ideas, tediousness. Don’t be drawn in, he argues, by poets who might be metrically skilled but don’t have anything interesting to say. He says the metrics of a piece should manifest easefully (“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,/As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”—very nice metaphor and very easefully expressed, we might note.)
--sound should echo sense, and he gives us several lines that both illustrate and exemplify this precept.
--the stanza appears to end w/ P. arguing that music is a natural and timeless quality that we appreciate, so contemporary poets can achieve in that respect what the ancients did.
25. avoid extremes. don’t admire too easily or be too easily disgusted.
26. don’t be prejudiced toward one group or kind of writer. then: value whatever is true.
27. don’t be faddish, or prejudiced toward social status. then: don’t over-admire aristocracy.
28. don’t discount work b/c it’s popular or favor only the latest. don’t be fickle. then: age does not necessarily bring wisdom. then: don’t get caught up in [intellectual?] feuds that may merely make you temporarily popular.
29. don’t approve only of what you are predisposed to like. then at the end of the stanza (last ten lines or so) he employs a wonderful metaphor to say that envy is evidence of merit and follows it like a shadow, and even praise born from envy will ultimately confirm the greatness of great works.
30. praise works even if no one has praised them yet, if they deserve it.
31. sometimes fame strikes too early (?). he seems to be expounding upon the frailty of a precocious wit.
32. writers that feud are foolish (?). toward the end of the stanza are some very famous lines that argue that we should not be obsequious w/ our praise and that we should be forgiving (“Good nature and good sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive, divine.”)
33. castigate what is worthy of your vile. then: don’t be flippantly critical. then: be critical of social wrongs. and finally: don’t be corrupted; the corrupt will assume you can be.
PART III.
34. a critic has to be moral.
35. don’t be arrogant, even when yr sure about yrself. speak diffidently.
36. try to instruct people inconspicuously.
37. don’t arrogantly give advice, but nor be too shy.
38. don’t critique dullness too insistently; some critics go on too long.
39. a few remarks on the overly-learned and fastidious critic. then: more remarks on the qualities of the arrogant & foolish critic.
40. qualities of the wise critic.
41. praise for Aristotle (“The mightly Stagyrite”).
42. praise for Horace.
43. praise for Dionysious, a 1st century Greek rhetorician, historian, & critic.
44. praise for Petronious, a 1st century Roman satirist.
45. praise for Quintilian, a 1st century Roman rhetorician.
46. praise for Longinus.
47. a thumbnail assessment of the various ages: Golden Ages of Athens & Rome; then Middle Ages (learning was “over-run”).
48. praise for Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar.
49. praise for Italian Renaissance scholars & artists.
50. praise for post Renaissance flourishing, first in France, then some in England. some praise for some recent English writers, specifically P.’s friend William Walsh, a worthy critic.
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