Literary Criticism (2) Past Paper - Sohag University

Sohag University Faculty of Arts English Dept. Literary Criticism (2) For University Students  Contents 1. The Neoclassical age: Beginnings 2. John Dryden 3. An Essay on Dramatic Poesy 4. Alexander Pope 5. Essay on Criticism 6. Romantic...

Sohag University Faculty of Arts English Dept. Literary Criticism (2) For University Students  Contents 1. The Neoclassical age: Beginnings 2. John Dryden 3. An Essay on Dramatic Poesy 4. Alexander Pope 5. Essay on Criticism 6. Romantic Criticism 7. William Wordsworth 8. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 9. Preface to the Lyrical Ballads 10. On Poesy and Art 2  3 p  ‫جامعة‪ :‬سوهاج‬ ‫كلية‪ :‬اآلداب‬ ‫قسم‪ :‬اللغة اإلنجليزية‬ ‫توصيف مقرر دراسي‬ ‫نقد أدبي (‪Engl 314 – )2‬‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫َغرعشض هزا اىَقشس – تعذ ٍشاجعح اىَفاهٌُ اْعاعُّح فٍ اىْقذ واىَحطاخ‬ ‫اىَه َّح فٍ ذاسَخ اىْظشَح اىْقذَح اىغشتُح – ٍذاسط اىْقذ اْدتٍ وّصىصه‬ ‫اىَه َّح فٍ اىقشُِّ اىصاٍِ عشش واىراعع عشش وفٍ ٍقذٍرها اىَذسعح اىنالعُنُح‬ ‫اىجذَذج مَا ذظهش فٍ أعَاه جىُ دساَذُ وأىنغْذس تىب واىَذسعح‬ ‫اىشوٍاّغُح مَا ذظهش فٍ أعَاه وَيُاً وسدصوسز وشُيٍ ومىىُشَذض ٍع تُاُ‬ ‫ذأشُش ذيل اْعَاه عيً اْدب واىْقذ فٍ اىعاىٌ اىعشتٍ‪..‬‬ ‫‪ -1‬تُاّاخ اىَقشس‪:‬‬ ‫اىفشقح‪ /‬اىَغرىي‪ :‬اىصاىصح اىفصو‬ ‫اعٌ اىَقشس‪:‬‬ ‫اىشٍض اىنىدٌ‪Engl 314 :‬‬ ‫اْوه‬ ‫ّقذ أدتٍ )‪(2‬‬ ‫عذد اىىحذاخ اىذساعُح‪ّ 11 :‬ظشٌ ‪ 1‬عَيٍ‪ :‬ال َىجذ‬ ‫‪ -‬اىقشاءج اىىاعُح ىّداب اىَنرىتح‬ ‫‪ -1‬هذف اىَقشس‪:‬‬ ‫تاىيغح اإلّجيُضَّح‪.‬‬ ‫‪ -‬اىرَ ّنِ ٍِ شقافح اىيغح‬ ‫اإلّجيُضَّح واىقذسج عيً إدساك‬ ‫اإلطاس اىحضاسٌ اىشاٍو ىها‬ ‫وٍا ذَراص ته شقافرها‬ ‫‪ -‬اىَغرهذف ٍِ ذذسَظ اىَقشس‪:‬‬ ‫‪ََُّ -‬ض اىرُاساخ اْدتُّح واىفنشَّح اىشائعح اىَه َّح فٍ ذشاز‬ ‫أ‪ -‬اىَعيىٍاخ واىَفاهٌُ‪:‬‬ ‫اىيغح اإلّجيُضَّح‪.‬‬ ‫‪َ -‬حيّو اىْصىص اىَنرىتح واىشفهُح تاىيغح اإلّجيُضَح‪.‬‬ ‫ب‪ -‬اىَهاساخ اىزهُْح‪:‬‬ ‫‪َ -‬قشأ اىْصىص اىَنرىتح تاىيغح اإلّجيُضَّح قشاءج صحُحح‪.‬‬ ‫ض‪ -‬اىَهاساخ اىَهُْح اىخاصح تاىَقشس‪:‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬.‫ اىعَو اىجَاعٍ وإداسج اىفشَق‬- - :‫ اىَهاساخ اىعاٍح‬-‫د‬.‫ اىرعثُش عِ ٍخريف اْفناس واىَفاهٌُ تأعيىب ٍىجض وفعّاه‬-.‫ اقرشاح اىحيىه اىَْاعثح ٌْ ٍشنيح ذىاجهه فٍ ٍجاه عَيه‬-.َِ‫ اىرىاصو تإَجاتُح ٍع اِخش‬-.‫ اعرخذاً ذنْىىىجُا اىَعيىٍاخ فٍ ٍجاه اىيغح اإلّجيُضَح‬-.‫ جَع وعشض اىَعيىٍاخ تطشَقح ٍالئَح‬- 1. Introduction :‫ ٍحرىي اىَقشس‬-4 2. Early 18th Century 3. Neo-classicism 4. John Dryden: An essay of Dramatic Poesy 5. John Dryden: An essay of Dramatic Poesy 6. Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism I 7. Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism II 8. Mid-term Exam 9. The Romantic period and Early 19th century 10. William Wordsworth & S.T. Coleridge 11. A Preface to the Lyrical Ballads 12. Coleridge: Biographia Literaria 13. P. B. Shelley: Defence of Poetry 14. Revision ‫ اىَحاضشج واىَْاقشح‬- :ٌ‫ أعاىُة اىرعيٌُ واىرعي‬-5 ‫ إعذاد اىثحس واىعشض‬- ‫ اىَحاضشج واىَْاقشح‬- ٌ‫ أعاىُة اىرعيٌُ واىرعيٌ ىيطالب رو‬-6 ‫ إعذاد اىثحس واىعشض‬- :‫اىقذساخ اىَحذودج‬ :‫ ذقىٌَ اىطالب‬-7 5  ‫‪ -‬اٍرحاُ ذحشَشٌ قثو ّهاَح اىفصو اىذساعٍ‬ ‫أ‪ -‬اْعاىُة اىَغرخذٍح‪:‬‬ ‫تأعثىعُِ‪(-‬عششوُ دسجح)‬ ‫‪ -‬اٍرحاُ ذحشَشٌ فٍ ّهاَح اىفصو اىذساعٍ‪( -‬شَاّىُ‬ ‫دسجح)‬ ‫‪ -‬قثو ّهاَح اىفصو اىذساعٍ تأعثىعُِ‬ ‫ب‪ -‬اىرىقُد‪:‬‬ ‫‪ -‬فٍ ّهاَح اىفصو اىذساعٍ‬ ‫‪-‬شالشىُ دسجح‬ ‫ض‪ -‬ذىصَع اىذسجاخ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ -‬عثعىُ دسجح‬ ‫‪ -8‬قائَح اىنرة اىذساعُح واىَشاجع‪:‬‬ ‫)‪Literary Criticism (2‬‬ ‫أ‪ٍ -‬زمشاخ‬ ‫‪M. A. R. Habib. A history of literary criticism: from‬‬ ‫ب‪ -‬مرة ٍيضٍح‬ ‫‪Plato to the present. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005.‬‬ ‫‪David Mikics, A New Handbook of Literary‬‬ ‫‪Terms, 2007.‬‬ ‫ض‪ -‬مرة ٍقرشحح‬ ‫د‪ -‬دوسَاخ عيَُح أو ّششاخ ‪...‬إىخ‬ ‫سئُظ ٍجيظ اىقغٌ اىعيٍَ‬ ‫أعرار اىَقشس‬ ‫د‪.‬سمير عبد النعيم‬ ‫د‪.‬سمير عبد النعيم‬ ‫‪6‬‬  The Neoclassical Age: Beginnings The Neoclassical Age developed in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. During this period, writers and artists continued the Renaissance trend of looking to the ancient Greeks and Romans for inspiration. Neoclassical writers, such as Samuel Johnson, Moliere and Alexander Pope, sought clear, precise language. They standardized spelling and grammar, shifted away from the complex metaphors employed by Shakespeare and simplified literary structures. Beliefs Neoclassical writers were shaped by the ideals of the Age of Reason, such as moderation, the common sense of society and limited aspiration. They felt that art should be logically organized, rather than a conspicuous burst of emotion. It was better, in their opinion, to effectively express ancient truths than their own views. 7  Literary Ideals Neoclassical writers considered the works of classical writers, such as Sophocles and Virgil, to be simple, perfect masterpieces. The neoclassical writers closely followed the conventions set forth by their earlier counterparts. Themes Neoclassical writers often adopted a rigid view toward society. Although Renaissance writers were fascinated by rebels and the Romantics later idealized them, neoclassical writers felt that the individual should conform to social norms. Although society was probably corrupt, individual views could not stand against the truths found in the consensus of society. 8  English neoclassicism The English Neoclassical movement, predicated upon and derived from both classical and contemporary French models, (see Boileau's L'Art Poetique (1674) and Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (1711) as critical statements of Neoclassical principles) embodied a group of attitudes toward art and human existence — ideals of order, logic, accuracy, "correctness," "restraint," decorum, and so on, which would enable the practitioners of various arts to imitate or reproduce the structures and themes of Greek or Roman originals. Though its origins were much earlier (the Elizabethan Ben Jonson, for example, was as indebted to the Roman poet Horace as Alexander Pope would later be), Neoclassicism dominated English literature from the Restoration in 1660 until the end of the eighteenth century, when the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) by Wordsworth and Coleridge marked the full emergence of Romanticism. 9  Neoclassicism: the three phases For the sake of convenience the Neoclassic period can be divided into three relatively coherent parts: the Restoration Age (1660-1700), in which Milton, Bunyan, and Dryden were the dominant influences; the Augustan Age (1700-1750), in which Pope was the central poetic figure, while Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were presiding over the sophistication of the novel; and the Age of Johnson(1750-1798), which, while it was dominated and characterized by the mind and personality of the inimitable Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose sympathies were with the fading Augustan past, saw the beginnings of a new understanding and appreciation of the work of Shakespeare, the development, by Sterne and others, of the novel of sensibility, and the emergence of the Gothic school — attitudes which established the intellectual and emotional foundations of English Romanticism. 10  Neoclassicism: a definition  To a certain extent Neoclassicism represented a reaction against the optimistic, exuberant, and enthusiastic Renaissance view of man as a being fundamentally good and possessed of an infinite potential for spiritual and intellectual growth.  Neoclassical theorists, by contrast, saw man as an imperfect being, inherently sinful, whose potential was limited. They replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination, on invention and experimentation, and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and reason, on restraint, on common sense, and on religious, political, economic and philosophical conservatism.  They maintained that man himself was the most appropriate subject of art, and saw art itself as essentially pragmatic — as valuable because it was somehow useful — and as something which was properly intellectual rather than emotional. 11  Hence their emphasis on proper subject matter; and hence their attempts to subordinate details to an overall design, to employ in their work concepts like symmetry, proportion, unity, harmony, and grace, which would facilitate the process of delighting, instructing, educating, and correcting the social animal which they believed man to be.  Their favorite prose literary forms were the essay, the letter, the satire, the parody, the burlesque, and the moral fable; in poetry, the favorite verse form was the rhymed couplet, which reached its greatest sophistication in heroic couplet of Pope; while the theatre saw the development of the heroic drama, the melodrama, the sentimental comedy, and the comedy of manners. 12  The fading away of Neoclassicism may have appeared to represent the last flicker of the Enlightenment, but artistic movements never really die:  many of the primary aesthetic tenets of Neoclassicism, in fact have reappeared in the twentieth century — in, for example, the poetry and criticism of T. S. Eliot — as manifestations of a reaction against Romanticism itself:  Eliot saw Neo-classicism as emphasising poetic form and conscious craftsmanship, and Romanticism as a poetics of personal emotion and "inspiration," and pointedly preferred the former 13  Neoclassical Literary Criticism Neoclassicism refers to a broad tendency in literature and art enduring from the early seventeenth century until around 1750. While the nature of this tendency inevitably varied across different cultures, it was usually marked by a number of common concerns and characteristics. Most fundamentally, neoclassicism comprised a return to the classical models, literary styles, and values of ancient Greek and Roman authors. In this, the neoclassicists were to some extent heirs of the Renaissance humanists. But many of them reacted sharply against what they perceived to be the stylistic excess, superfluous ornamentation, and linguistic oversophistication of some Renaissance writers. However, whereas many Renaissance poets had labored toward an individualism of outlook, even as they appropriated elements of the classical canon, the neoclassicists in general were less ambiguous in their emphasis upon the classical values of objectivity, impersonality, rationality, decorum, balance, harmony, proportion, and moderation. Whereas many Renaissance poets were beginning to understand profoundly the importance of invention and creativity, the neoclassical writers reaffirmed literary composition as a rational and rule-bound process, requiring a great deal of craft, labor, and study. Where Renaissance theorists and poets were advocating new and mixed genres, the neoclassicists tended to insist on the separation of poetry and prose, the purity of each genre, and the hierarchy of genres (though, unlike Aristotle, they generally placed the epic above tragedy). The typical verse forms of the neoclassical poets were the alexandrine in France 14 and the heroic couplet in England. Much neoclassical thought was marked by a recognition of human finitude, in contrast with the humanists’ (and, later, the Romantics’) assertion of almost limitless human potential. Two of the concepts central to neoclassical literary theory and practice were imitation and nature, which were intimately related. In one sense, the notion of imitation – of the external world, and primarily, of human action – was a reaffirmation of the ideals of objectivity and impersonality, as opposed to the increasingly sophisticated individualism and exploration of subjectivity found in Renaissance writers. But also integral to this notion was imitation of classical models, especially Homer and Vergil. In fact, these two aspects of imitation were often identified, as by Pope. The identification was based largely on the concept of nature. This complex concept had a number of senses. It referred to the harmonious and hierarchical order of the universe, including the various social and political hierarchies within the world. In this vast scheme of nature, everything had its proper and appointed place. The concept also referred to human nature: to what was central, timeless, and universal in human experience. Hence, “nature” had a deep moral significance, comprehending the modes of action that were permissible and excluding certain actions as “unnatural” (a term often used by Shakespeare to describe the murderous and cunning behavior of characters such as Lady Macbeth). Clearly, the neoclassical vision of nature was very different from the meanings later given to it by the Romantics; this vision inherited something of the medieval view of nature as a 15 providential scheme but, as will emerge shortly, it was informed by more recent scientific views of nature rather than by Aristotelian physics. The neoclassical writers generally saw the ancients such as Homer and Vergil as having already discovered and expressed the fundamental laws of nature. Hence, the external world, including the world of human action, could best be expressed by modern writers if they followed the path of imitation already paved by the ancients. Invention was of course allowed, but only as a modification of past models, not in the form of a rupture. The classical tendency in England embraced a number of major prose writers who laid the foundations of the modern English novel, such as Daniel Defoe (1660?–1731), Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), and Henry Fielding (1707–1754). As will be seen below, Dryden and Johnson were perhaps the most flexible exponents of neoclassicism in England, attempting to mediate between the merits of ancients and moderns. In general, the critics ranging from Jonson to Dryden effectively advanced the notion of a viable English literary tradition. 16  John Dryden (1631-1700) ( The father of English criticism)  English poet, critic, playwright, and translator. INTRODUCTION  Regarded by many scholars as the father of modern English poetry and criticism, Dryden dominated literary life in England during the last four decades of the seventeenth century.  By deliberately and comprehensively refining language, Dryden developed an expressive, universal diction which has had a profound impact on the evolution of speech and writing in the English- speaking world.  Although initially famous for his comedies and heroic tragedies, among Dryden's other accomplishments are critical essays as well as translations of works by Virgil, Chaucer, and Boccaccio.  Today he is also highly regarded for his satirical and didactic poems, notably Absalom and Achitophel, The Hind and the Panther, and Religio Laici. In poems such as these, Dryden displayed an 17  irrepressible wit and forceful line of argument which later satirists adopted as their model. Biographical Information The eldest son of a large, socially prominent Puritan family, Dryden was born in Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire.  Little is known about his early years, except that as a young boy he received a classical education at Westminster School through a royal scholarship. While there he published his first poem, Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings, commemorating the life of a schoolmate who had recently died of smallpox.  In 1650 Dryden began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree. Shortly afterward his father died, leaving him to 18  oversee the affairs of his family and of his own small estate. Dryden's activities and whereabouts during the next several years are unknown; in 1659, however, following the death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Dryden returned to writing and published Heroique Stanzas, a group of complimentary verses which portray Cromwell as architect of a great new age. In the following years, Dryden continued to publish politically oriented poems, of which the most notable are Astraea Redux and Annus Mirabilis: the Year of Wonders, 1666. The former, which celebrated the exiled Charles II's restoration to the English crown, incited condemnation in later years from those who charged Dryden with political inconsistency and selfish motivation.  Since then, historians have argued that Dryden maintained throughout his life a 19  belief in religious tolerance and moderate government and switched allegiance from the republicans to the royalists in keeping with the majority of the English people. In 1663, following his marriage to Lady Elizabeth Howard, Dryden debuted as a playwright, a career which at the time held the most financial promise for an aspiring writer in England.  His first play proved unsuccessful, but later endeavors, in particular The Indian Emperour (1665), were popular and established Dryden's reputation in drama, a field which he increasingly dominated during the next fifteen years. In 1668 Dryden became poet laureate of England, and shortly thereafter, received the title of historiographer royal. In 1685, during the first year of the reign of Catholic monarch James II, Dryden converted to Catholicism. He 20 did not renounce this conversion after the abdication of James or with the accession in 1689 of Protestant rulers William and Mary. Dryden died in London in 1700 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Throughout the years, Dryden's detractors have focused on his shifts from Protestantism to Catholicism and from republicanism to monarchism as proof of the poet's flair for political expediency. Generally, however, Dryden is recognized as someone who in his time was an extremely popular literary figure, who believed in religious moderation, and who influenced heavily the tastes of his age. 21  Criticism From John Dryden by by Bonamy Dobrée As with his poetry, most of Dryden's prose is occasional. The exception is his Essay of Dramatick Poesy, a dialogue platonic in its framework and general conduct.  Otherwise it is made up of dedications and prefaces, the former sometimes becoming critical essays, as the latter always are. The dedications we tend to regard as fulsome; they are addressed for the more part to noble patrons, even to royalty, and may seem to us ludicrously, or shamefully, laudatory: but then the dedication was a genre of its own, with its laws and traditions.  Nobody—least of all, one imagines, the addressees—took them literally. Dryden's, beautifully phrased, always graceful, sometimes witty, invariably retain a perfect balance, the tribute paid never being wholly undeserved. But they need not detain us here. 22   The prefaces are another matter. They are full of meat, lively, to the point, still of vital interest to any writer who takes his craft seriously. They are never stiff or pedantic; they border on looseness, for a preface, Dryden held, should be a rambling sort of affair, never wholly in the way, nor ever wholly out of it.  No one, Dr. Johnson pronounced, ever found them tedious. Sometimes Dryden attacks; sometimes he defends himself; but for the greater part he is thinking aloud as an artist handling his material. Dryden, to quote Johnson again, `may properly be considered as the father of English criticism'.  There had, of course, been critics before him, but their approach was sectional, dealing either with philosophic ideas or narrow technique.  Dryden not only combined and broadened the two, but was the first critic to define, by practice 23  rather than by precept, what were the important things to talk about. Take, for instance, the Essay of Dramatick Poesy.  The important things to talk about, then, now, and always, are structure and diction, and his characters talked about them. We may not go hand in hand with the debaters there; we approach the matter a little differently:  but here as everywhere he puts the issues squarely before us, not attempting to dragoon us into one opinion or another. He stimulates our thoughts to make up our own minds; for after all, we are all unalike, and `our minds are perpetually wrought on by the temperament of our bodies'. So long as he is writing plays, he discusses the drama: but when he engages in other forms he divagates upon those, as satires in The Original and Progress of Satire; and when he comes to translation he talks about that, especially when prefacing his AEneis. 24   But in his tremendous, easy discourses, those to the various Miscellanies known as The Preface to Sylvae (1685), the Dedication of Examen Poeticum (1693), and the finalPreface to the Fables, and others, he tries to get at the heart of the writers he is criticizing. This seems to come in incidentally, as when he is explaining why he translates various authors in different ways, how he is striving to get at their being before deciding how they would have said in English in the late seventeenth century what they said in their own tongue in their own age. To choose a little at random: If I am not mistaken, the distinguishing character of Lucretius (I mean of his soul and genius) is a certain kind of noble pride, and positive assertion of his opinions... From this sublime and daring genius of his, it must of necessity come to pass that his thoughts must be masculine, full of argumentation, and that sufficiently warm. From the same fiery temper proceeds the loftiness of his expressions and the perpetual torrent of his verse, where the barrenness of his subject does not too much constrain the quickness of his fancy... 25 That is discriminatory criticism; we understand Lucretius : and think also of the implications of Dryden's seemingly casual remarks. Or look at what he says about Chaucer, some of whose work he modernized from his desire to keep him in the tradition of English literature. In his day many judges, including Cowley, regarded Chaucer as `a dry, old- fashioned wit, not worth reviving', or on the other hand held him in such `veneration due to his old language... that it [was] little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it'. But Dryden wanted Chaucer to be read.  As he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil.  He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learned in all sciences; and therefore speaks properly on all subjects: As he knew what he wanted to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers... 26 He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his age... 'tis sufficient to say, according to the old proverb, that here is God's plenty. He was always eager to pay tribute to his giant predecessors, which is not only part of his humility towards those who have done superbly the task he assigned himself, but proof of his extraordinary judgement. It is easy enough for us to regard Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, as towering figures; but it was Dryden who first declared they were so. As early as the Essay of Dramatick Poesy he could write: To begin then with Shakespeare. He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. 27 There is hardly anything more to be said: but Dryden said it at a time when Shakespeare was dubiously regarded, looked upon as a barbarous author, who did indeed want learning. That he needed trimming Dryden agreed with Ben Jonson in thinking; he also knew that for his plays to be popular they must be infused a little with the sense of the new age; Dryden was the first to appreciate that different ages have different needs. What is more remarkable still for a practising poet, he could pay homage to a near contemporary working towards different ends by methods other than his own: earliest among critical contemporaries he hailed Paradise Lost as 'undoubtedly one of the greatest, most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced'. For with his wide comprehensiveness he regarded all literature as one, a gift given to creative writers, but unavoidably a little foreign to the academic mind, intent upon separating, 28  reluctant to believe with Dryden that `Mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of Nature, though every thing is altered'. And throughout he reveals a superb common sense, in itself amounting to genius: he never allows an idea to rush him into extravagance; he merely sets forth his own at the time. `I have only laid down,' he ends The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence, `and that superficially enough, my present thoughts; and shall be glad to be taught better by those who pretend to reform our poetry.' He does not presume to constrict anything so fluid, so divers et ondoyant as the great human activity of literature into rigid compartments, emaciating by definitions, strangling by categories. For after all—from the same essay— 'they wholly mistake the nature of criticism who think its business is principally to find fault. Criticism... was meant a standard of judging well; the chiefest part of which is, to observe those excellencies which should delight a reasonable reader.' 29  Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy provides perhaps the fullest single representation of issues and attitudes in neoclassical criticism. And it is particularly important because it belies one popular view of neoclassical criticism, namely, that it was wholly dogmatic and a slave to its own arbitrary decrees. Dryden is not imprisoned by rules and is able to see many sides of the issues he raises. At the center of his essay lies the classical idea of decorum enunciated by Horace, but decorum is never for Dryden merely obeisance to the prevailing fashion. The essay, strongly influenced by Corneille and Ben Jonson, is written in the form of a dialogue among four gentlemen: Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander. The last, Neander, seems to speak for Dryden himself. First they consider whether the ancients or the modems wrote better, a quarrel of some popularity later satirized by Jonathan Swift. This question turns into a discussion of the so-called unities of time, place, and action, what they are, and whether they must be observed. Discussion then moves to a relative judgment of the French and English playwrights and whether the traditional genres of tragedy and comedy ought properly to be mixed in a single work, as the English had done. There 30 is finally a consideration of the propriety of writing plays in rhymed verse. Eugenius argues that the modems excel the ancients, having profited from the rules that the ancient writers laid down; he remarks in passing that the ancients did not themselves observe the unity of place. Crites, defending the ancients, points out that they invented the principles of dramatic art enunciated by Aristotle and Horace, who established the unities adopted by the French; he observes that the greatest English modem, Ben Jonson, followed the ancients. Crites, who is opposed to rhyme in plays, argues that though the modems excel in science, the ancient age was the true age of poetry. Lisideius, who defines a play as "a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humors, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject for the delight and instruction of mankind," defends the French playwrights and attacks the English tendency to mix genres. Neander, who has the last word, adopts a position favoring the modems, respectful of the ancients, critical of too rigid insistence on dramatic laws, and willing to accept rhyme in its proper place. In Lisideius's definition, which is provisionally accepted by the other three, there are two fundamental theoretical 31 points: drama is an imitation, and its aim is to delight and teach. The essay becomes deeply involved with the problem of imitation when it considers how closely the dramatist must adhere to the unities of time, place, and action. If imitation means that the play must create a direct illusion of "real" life, then the unities must be strictly observed; but if it does not, then the question is perhaps what formal integrity, independent of a sort of naive realism, the playwright ought to be seeking. The principle of decorum in Dryden is associated finally with an idea of formal integrity. In 1668 Dryden also wrote a "Defense" of his essay, devoted mainly to advocating the use of rhyme. In the course of this essay, he remarks: "Delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poetry: instruction can be admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it delights." A slippery statement, it nevertheless places Dryden on the side of delight in an old argument. Dryden's critical works are available in a number of editions. That by W. P. Ker, Essays by John Dryden in two volumes (1900), though still useful, has largely been superseded by George Watson's John Dryden: Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays in two volumes (1962). Commentary on Dryden includes 32 A. M. Ellis, "Horace's Influence on Dryden," Philological Quarterly IV (1925), 39-60; L. I. Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (1934); Hoyt Trowbridge, "The Place of Rules in Dryden's Criticism," Modern Philology XLIV (1946-1947), 84-96; F. L. Huntley, On Dryden 's Essay of Dramatic Poesy (195 1); Phillip Harth, Contexts of Dryden 's Thought (1968); H. James Jensen, A Glossary of John Dryden 's Critical Terms (1969); Robert D. Hume, Dryden 's Criticism (1970); Edward Pechter, Dryden 's Classical Theory of Literatwe (1975); Michael Werth Gelber, The Just and the Lively: The Literary Criticism of John Dryden (1999). 33 The Life of Alexander Pope (1688-1744 ) Alexander Pope was a son of a London cloth merchant who was also a Roman Catholic draper. Pope was educated at various Catholic schools until the age of twelve, when a severe illness of spine left him crippled. Therefore, he never grew taller than 4ft 16in (about 127c.m.) and was subject to violent headaches. He was exceptionally irritable all his life because of that illness. After his illness, he mainly self-educated. Pope has admired Horace (a Roman poet) and Vergilius (poet) and valued them as models of poetry. In his time, Pope was famous for his witty satire and aggressive, bitter quarrels with other writers. Pope is generally regarded as the leading 18th century English poetic satirist. He's one of the greatest poets of Enlightenment and his breakthrough work " An Essay on Criticism" (1711) appeared when he was at age 23. Pope was considered literary dictator of his age and the epitome of English Neoclassicism. 34  Pope's essay on criticism  In the Essay on Criticism (1711), written in 1709 when he was hardly twenty-one, Pope was trying to write a poetical essay which would hold the same important place in English that Boileau's Art Poétique (1674) was holding in French criticism.  If it did not quite attain this position, the reason is not that Pope's essay is inferior to Boileau's. It is simply that English writers of any period, including the age of Pope, have a way of refusing to form schools and follow manifestoes.  Still, Pope's Essay on Criticism is not only the last but perhaps the most rewarding of the important critical essays in verse modeled on Horace's Art of Poetry.  It draws upon the previous verse-essays of Horace, Vida, and Boileau, as well as those of 35   two minor Restoration writers, the Earls of Mulgrave and Roscommon. It also draws upon precepts from the Roman Quintilian and the French critics, Rapin and Le Bossu.  Above all, its general tone is kept comparatively liberal and flexible by the influence of Dryden, and, to some extent, of Longinus.  The background is broad. This may partly explain why the Essay on Criticism is more comprehensive in what it covers than any of the other Horatian verse-essays, including that of Boileau.  It also quite equals Boileau in edge of style, and it surpasses him in compactness. The Essay on Criticism is more profitably introduced by a topical summary of its themes than by an analysis of its premises. For its premises and aims are those of the entire neoclassic tradition. And the poem itself is a statement or summary of them rather than an individual argument or analysis. 36  Essay on Criticism Thoroughly neoclassical in its premises, the Essay on Criticism follows in the tradition of Horace and Boileau. Pope's approach differs from that of the two previous poets, however, in that his advice is mainly for critics and secondarily for poets. Nevertheless he must establish the principles of sound artistic practice. The basic rule of art for Pope is to "follow nature." Clearly the poet must have a strong sense of literary tradition in order to make intelligent judgments, and the critic must have it too. Pope, in lines that have since become famous, notes Virgil's discovery that to imitate Homer is also to imitate nature. Most important, the critic should avoid pride; he should try to sense and share the spirit in which his author wrote. Pope goes beyond this precept to remind critics that the author cannot accomplish more than he intends. He is equally critical of slavery to fashion and to personal whim, and he insists on the critic's having the qualities of honesty, modesty, and courage. The critics whom he selects for his admiration indicate his stance: Aristotle, Horace, 37 Dionysius of Halicamassus, Petronius Arbiter, Quintilian, Longinus, Erasmus, Vida (who wrote an "Art of Poetry"), and finally Boileau. The Earl of Roscommon, a Restoration writer who translated Horace, and William Walsh, a minor poet and friend of Pope's, are also praised. It is clear that at age twenty-one the prodigious Pope takes up, with this poem, defense of the classical tradition. The standard edition of Pope is the Twickenham edition of the Works, edited by John Butt (in six volumes, 1939- 1967). See also Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (in two volumes, 1756, 1782); Austin Warren, Pope as Critic and Humanist (1929); E. N. Hooker, "Pope on Wit: The Essay on Criticism," Hudson Review, II (1950), 84-100; William Empson, " 'Wit' in the Essay on Criticism," Hudson Review, 11 (1950), 559-77; Arthur Fenner, Jr., "The Unity of Pope's Essay on Criticism," Philological Quarterly, XXXIX ( 1 960), 435-56; Bertrand A. Goldgar, ed., Literary Criticism of Alexander Pope ( 1 965); Maynard Mack, Alexander Pope: A Life ( 1985); Wallace Jackson and R. Paul Yoder, eds., Critical Essays on Alexander Pope (1993). 38  Alexander Pope (1688–1744) An Essay on Criticism, published anonymously by Alexander Pope in 1711, is perhaps the clearest statement of neoclassical principles in any language. In its broad outlines, it expresses a worldview which synthesizes elements of a Roman Catholic outlook with classical aesthetic principles and with deism. That Pope was born a Roman Catholic affected not only his verse and critical principles but also his life. In the year of his birth occurred the so-called “Glorious Revolution”: England’s Catholic monarch James II was displaced by the Protestant King William III of Orange, and the prevailing anti-Catholic laws constrained many areas of Pope’s life; he could not obtain a university education, hold public or political office, or even reside in London. Pope’s family, in fact, moved to a small farm in Windsor Forest, a neighborhood occupied by other Catholic families of the gentry, and he later moved with his mother to Twickenham. However, Pope was privately taught and moved in an elite circle of London writers which included the dramatists Wycherley and Congreve, the poet Granville, the critic William Walsh, as well as the writers Addison and Steele, and the deistic politician Bolingbroke. Pope’s personal life was also afflicted by disease: he was a hunchback, only four and a half feet tall, and suffered from tuberculosis. He was in constant need of his maid to dress and care for him. Notwithstanding such social and personal obstacles, Pope produced some of the finest verse ever written. His most renowned publications include several mock-heroic poems such 39 as The Rape of the Lock (1712; 1714), and The Dunciad (1728). His philosophical poem An Essay on Man (1733–1734) was a scathing attack on human arrogance or pride in failing to observe the due limits of human reason, in questioning divine authority and seeking to be self-reliant on the basis of rationality and science. Even An Essay on Criticism is written in verse, following the tradition of Horace’s Ars poetica, and interestingly, much of the philosophical substance of An Essay on Man is already formulated in this earlier poem, in its application to literature and criticism. While An Essay on Man identifies the chief fault of humankind as the original sin of “pride” and espouses an ethic based on an ordered and hierarchical universe, it nonetheless depicts this order in terms of Newtonian mechanism and expresses a broadly deistic vision. The same contradictions permeate the Essay on Criticism, which effects an eclectic mixture of a Roman Catholic vision premised on the (negative) significance of pride, a humanistic secularism perhaps influenced by Erasmus, a stylistic neoclassicism with roots in the rhetorical tradition from Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, and modern disciples such as Boileau, and a modernity in the wake of figures such as Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke. Some critics have argued that the resulting conglomeration is inharmonious; in fairness to Pope, we might cite one of his portraits of the satirist: Verse-man or Prose-man, term me which you will, 40  Papist or Protestant, or both between, Like good Erasmus in an honest Mean, In moderation placing all my glory, While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory. (Satire II.i) Clearly, labels can oversimplify: yet it is beyond doubt that, on balance, Pope’s overall vision was conservative and retrospective. He is essentially calling for a return to the past, a return to classical values, and the various secularizing movements that he bemoans are already overwhelming the view of nature, man, and God that he is attempting to redeem. Indeed, Pope’s poem has been variously called a study and defense of “nature” and of “wit.” The word “nature” is used twenty-one times in the poem; the word “wit” forty-six times. Given the numerous meanings accumulated in the word “nature” as it has passed through various traditions, Pope’s call for a “return to nature” is complex, and he exploits the multiple significance of the term to generate within his poem a comprehensive redefinition of it. Among other things, nature can refer, on a cosmic level, to the providential order of the world and the universe, an order which is hierarchical, in which each entity has its proper assigned place. In An Essay on Man Pope expounds the “Great Chain of Being,” ranging from God and the angels through humans and the lower animals to plants and inanimate objects. Nature can also refer to what is normal, central, and universal in human experience, encompassing the spheres of 41 morality and knowledge, the rules of proper moral conduct as well as the archetypal patterns of human reason. The word “wit” in Pope’s time also had a variety of meanings: it could refer in general to intelligence and intellectual acuity; it also meant “wit” in the modern sense of cleverness, as expressed for example in the ability to produce a concise and poignant figure of speech or pun; more specifically, it might designate a capacity to discern similarities between different entities and to perceive the hidden relationships underlying the appearances of things. In fact, during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, “wit” was the subject of a broad and heated debate. Various parties contested the right to define it and to invest it with moral significance. A number of writers such as Nicolas Malebranche and Joseph Addison, and philosophers such as John Locke, argued that wit was a negative quality, associated with a corrupting imagination, distortion of truth, profanity, and skepticism, a quality opposed to “judgment,” which was a faculty of clear and truthful insight. Literature generally had come to be associated with wit and had been under attack from the Puritans also, who saw it as morally defective and corrupting. On the other side, writers such as John Dryden and William Wycherley, as well as moralists such as the third earl of Shaftesbury, defended the use and freedom of wit. Pope’s notions of wit were worked out in the context of this debate, and his redefinition of “true” wit in Essay on Criticism was a means not only of upholding the 42 proper uses of wit but also of defending literature itself, wit being a mode of knowing or apprehension unique to literature. It would be facile to dismiss Pope’s Essay on Criticism as an unoriginal work, as a hotchpotch of adages drawn from the likes of Aristotle, Horace, Quintilian, Longinus, and Boileau. While the isolated insights offered by Pope may not be original, the poem as a whole undertakes a number of endeavors that, in their poetic unification, might well be viewed as novel. To begin with, Pope is not merely delineating the scope and nature of good literary criticism; in doing this, he redefines classical virtues in terms of an exploration of nature and wit, as necessary to both poetry and criticism; and this restatement of classicism is itself situated within a broader reformulation of literary history, tradition, and religion. Above all, these three endeavors are pursued in the form of a poem: the form of the work exemplifies and enacts much of its overt “meaning.” And its power far exceeds its paraphrasable meaning: this power rests on the poetic effects generated by its own enactment of classical literary dispositions and its own organic unity. While much of Pope’s essay bemoans the abyss into which current literary criticism has fallen, he does not by any means denounce the practice of criticism itself. While he cautions that the best poets make the best critics (“Let such teach others who themselves excell,” l. 15), and while he recognizes that some critics are 43 failed poets (l. 105), he points out that both the best poetry and the best criticism are divinely inspired: Both must alike from Heav’n derive their Light, These born to Judge, as well as those to Write. (ll. 13–14) By the word “judge,” Pope refers to the critic, drawing on the meaning of the ancient Greek word krites. Pope sees the endeavor of criticism as a noble one, provided it abides by Horace’s advice for the poet: But you who seek to give and merit Fame, And justly bear a Critick’s noble Name, Be sure your self and your own Reach to know, How far your Genius, Taste, and Learning go; Launch not beyond your Depth... (ll. 46–50) Indeed, Pope suggests in many portions of the Essay that criticism itself is an art and must be governed by the same rules that apply to literature itself. However, there are a number of precepts he advances as specific to criticism. Apart from knowing his own capacities, the critic must be conversant with every aspect of the author whom he is examining, including the author’s... Fable, Subject, Scope in ev’ry Page, Religion, Country, Genius of his Age: Without all these at once before your Eyes, Cavil you may, but never Criticize. (ll. 120–123) Perhaps ironically, Pope’s advice here seems modern insofar as he calls for a knowledge of all aspects of the 44 author’s work, including not only its subject matter and artistic lineage but also its religious, national, and intellectual contexts. He is less modern in insisting that the critic base his interpretation on the author’s intention: “In ev’ry Work regard the Writer’s End, / Since none can compass more than they Intend” (ll. 233–234, 255–256). Pope specifies two further guidelines for the critic. The first is to recognize the overall unity of a work, and thereby to avoid falling into partial assessments based on the author’s use of poetic conceits, ornamented language, and meters, as well as those which are biased toward either archaic or modern styles or based on the reputations of given writers. Finally, a critic needs to possess a moral sensibility, as well as a sense of balance and proportion, as indicated in these lines: “Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost! / Good-Nature and Good-Sense must ever join” (ll. 523–525). In the interests of good nature and good sense, Pope urges the critic to adopt not only habits of self-criticism and integrity (“with pleasure own your Errors past, / And make each Day a Critick on the last,” ll. 570–571), but also modesty and caution. To be truthful is not enough, he warns; truth must be accompanied by “Good Breeding” or else it will lose its effect (ll. 572– 576). And mere bookish knowledge will often express itself in showiness, disdain, and an overactive tongue: “Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. / Distrustful Sense with modest Caution speaks” (ll. 625–626). Pope ends his advice with this summary of the ideal critic: But where’s the Man, who Counsel can bestow, 45  Still pleas’d to teach, and yet not proud to know? Unbiass’d, or by Favour or by Spite; Not dully prepossest, nor blindly right; Tho learn’d, well-bred; and tho’ well-bred, sincere;... Blest with a Taste exact, yet unconfin’d; A Knowledge both of Books and Humankind; Gen’rous Converse; a Soul exempt from Pride; And Love to Praise, with Reason on his Side? (ll. 631–642) As we read through this synthesis of the qualities of a good critic, it becomes clear that they are primarily attributes of humanity or moral sensibility rather than aesthetic qualities. Indeed, the only specifically aesthetic quality mentioned here is “taste.” The remaining virtues might be said to have a theological ground, resting on the ability to overcome pride. Pope effectively transposes the language of theology (“soul,” “pride”) to aesthetics. It is the disposition of humility – an aesthetic humility, if you will – which enables the critic to avoid the arrogant parading of his learning, to avoid falling into bias, and to open himself up to a knowledge of humanity. The “reason” to which Pope appeals is not the individualistic and secular “reason” of the Enlightenment philosophers; it is “reason” as understood by Aquinas and many medieval thinkers, reason as a universal archetype in human nature, constrained by a theological framework. Reason in this sense is a corollary of humility: it is humility which allows the critic to rise above egotistical dogmatism and thereby to be rational and impartial, and aware of 46 his own limitations, in his striving after truth. Knowledge itself, then, has a moral basis in good breeding; and underlying good breeding is the still profounder quality of sincerity, which we might understand here as a disposition commensurate with humility: a genuine desire to pursue truth or true judgment, unclouded by personal ambitions and subjective prejudices. Interestingly, the entire summary takes the form not of an assertion but of an extended question, implying that what is proposed here is an ideal type, to which no contemporary critic can answer. Pope’s specific advice to the critic is grounded on virtues whose application extends far beyond literary criticism, into the realms of morality, theology, and art itself. It is something of an irony that the main part of his Essay on Criticism is devoted not specifically to criticism but to art itself, of which poetry and criticism are regarded as branches. In other words, Pope sees criticism itself as an art. Hence most of the guidance he offers, couched in the language of nature and wit, applies equally to poetry and criticism. Not only this, but there are several passages which suggest that criticism must be a part of the creative process, that poets themselves must possess critical faculties in order to execute their craft in a self-conscious and controlled manner. Hence there is a large overlap between these domains, between the artistic elements within criticism and the critical elements necessary to art. While Pope’s central piece of advice to both poet and critic is to “follow Nature,” his elaboration of this concept enlists 47 the semantic service of both wit and judgment, establishing a close connection – sometimes indeed an identity – between all three terms; wit might be correlated with literature or poetry; and judgment with criticism. Because of the overlapping natures of poetry and criticism, however, both wit and judgment will be required in each of these pursuits. Before inviting the poet and critic to follow nature, Pope is careful to explain one of the central functions of nature: Nature to all things fix’d the Limits fit, And wisely curb’d proud Man’s pretending Wit;... One Science only will one Genius fit; So vast is Art, so narrow Human Wit... (ll. 52–53, 60–61) Hence, even before he launches into any discussion of aesthetics, Pope designates human wit generally as an instrument of pride, as intrinsically liable to abuse. In the scheme of nature, however, man’s wit is puny and occupies an apportioned place. It is in this context that Pope proclaims his famous maxim: First follow NATURE, and your Judgment frame By her just Standard, which is still the same: Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, Once clear, unchang’d, and Universal Light, Life, Force, and Beauty, must to all impart, At once the Source, and End, and Test of Art. (ll. 68–73) The features attributed to nature include permanence or timelessness and universality. Ultimately, nature is a force which expresses the power of the divine, not in 48 the later Romantic sense of a divine spirit pervading the physical appearances of nature but in the medieval sense of expressing the order, harmony, and beauty of God’s creation. As such, nature provides the eternal and archetypal standard against which art must be measured: the implication in the lines above is not that art imitates nature but that it derives its inspiration, purpose, and aesthetic criteria from nature. Pope’s view of nature as furnishing the universal archetypes for art leads him to condemn excessive individualism, which he sees as an abuse of wit. Wit is abused when it contravenes sound judgment: “For Wit and Judgment often are at strife, Tho’ meant each other’s Aid, like Man and Wife” (ll. 80–83). However, Pope does not believe, like many medieval rhetoricians, that poetry is an entirely rational process that can be methodically worked out in advance. In poetry, as in music, he points out, are “nameless Graces which no Methods teach” (l. 144). Indeed, geniuses can sometimes transgress the boundaries of judgment and their very transgression or license becomes a rule for art: Great Wits sometimes may gloriously offend, And rise to Faults true Criticks dare not mend; From vulgar Bounds with brave Disorder part, And snatch a Grace beyond the Reach of Art, Which, without passing thro’ the Judgment, gains The Heart, and all its End at once attains. (ll. 152 157) If Kant had been a poet, he might have expressed his central aesthetic ideas in this very way. Kant also 49 believed that a genius lays down the rules for art, that those rules cannot be prescribed in advance, and that aesthetic judgment bypasses the conventional concepts of our understanding. Indeed, Kant laid the groundwork for many Romantic aesthetics, and if Pope’s passage above were taken in isolation, it might well be read as a formulation of Romantic aesthetic doctrine. It seems to assert the primacy of wit over judgment, of art over criticism, viewing art as inspired and as transcending the norms of conventional thinking in its direct appeal to the “heart.” The critic’s task here is to recognize the superiority of great wit. While Pope’s passage does indeed in these respects stride beyond many medieval and Renaissance aesthetics, it must of course be read in its own poetic context: he immediately warns contemporary writers not to abuse such a license of wit: “Moderns, beware! Or if you must offend / Against the Precept, ne’er transgress its End” (ll. 163–164). In fact, the passage cited above is more than counterbalanced by Pope’s subsequent insistence that modern writers not rely on their own insights. Modern writers should draw on the common store of poetic wisdom, established by the ancients, and acknowledged by “Universal Praise” (l. 190). Pope’s exploration of wit aligns it with the central classical virtues, which are themselves equated with nature. His initial definition of true wit identifies it as an expression of nature: “True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, / What oft was Thought, but ne’er so well Exprest” (ll. 297–298). Pope subsequently says that expression is the “Dress of Thought,” and that “true 50 expression” throws light on objects without altering them (ll. 315–318). The lines above are a concentrated expression of Pope’s classicism. If wit is the “dress” of nature, it will express nature without altering it. The poet’s task here is twofold: not only to find the expression that will most truly convey nature, but also first to ensure that the substance that he is expressing is indeed a “natural” insight or thought. What the poet must express is a universal truth which we will instantly recognize as such. This classical commitment to the expression of objective and universal truth is echoed a number of times through Pope’s text. For example, he admonishes both poet and critic: “Regard not then if Wit be Old or New, / But blame the False, and value still the True” (ll. 406–407). A second classical ideal urged in the passage above is that of organic unity and wholeness. The expression or style, Pope insists, must be suited to the subject matter and meaning: “The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense” (l. 365). Elsewhere in the Essay, Pope stresses the importance, for both poet and critic, of considering a work of art in its totality, with all the parts given their due proportion and place (ll. 173– 174). Once again, wit and nature become almost interchangeable in Pope’s text. An essential component underlying such unity and proportion is the classical virtue of moderation. Pope advises both poet and critic to follow the Aristotelian ethical maxim: “Avoid Extreams.” Those who go to excess in any direction display “Great Pride, or Little Sense” (ll. 384–387). And once again, the ability to overcome pride – 51 humility – is implicitly associated with what Pope calls “right Reason” (l. 211). Indeed, the central passage in the Essay on Criticism, as in the later Essay on Man, views all of the major faults as stemming from pride: Of all the Causes which conspire to blind Man’s erring Judgment, and misguide the Mind,... Is Pride, the never-failing Vice of Fools. (ll. 201–204) It is pride which leads critics and poets alike to overlook universal truths in favor of subjective whims; pride which causes them to value particular parts instead of the whole; pride which disables them from achieving a harmony of wit and judgment; and pride which underlies their excesses and biases. And, as in the Essay on Man, Pope associates pride with individualism, with excessive reliance on one’s own judgment and failure to observe the laws laid down by nature and by the classical tradition. Pope’s final strategy in the Essay is to equate the classical literary and critical traditions with nature, and to sketch a redefined outline of literary history from classical times to his own era. Pope insists that the rules of nature were merely discovered, not invented, by the ancients: “Those Rules of old discover’d, not devis’d, / Are Nature still, but Nature Methodiz’d” (ll. 88–89). He looks back to a time in ancient Greece when criticism admirably performed its function as “the Muse’s Handmaid,” and facilitated a rational admiration of poetry. But criticism later declined from this high status, and those who “cou’d not win the 52 Mistress, woo’d the Maid” (ll. 100–105). Instead of aiding the appreciation of poetry, critics, perhaps in consequence of their own failure to master the poetic art, allowed the art of criticism to degenerate into irrational attacks on poets. Pope’s advice, for both critic and poet, is clear: “Learn hence for Ancient Rules a just Esteem; / To copy Nature is to copy Them” (ll. 139–140). Before offering his sketch of literary-critical history, Pope laments the passing of the “Golden Age” of letters (l. 478), and portrays the depths to which literature and criticism have sunk in the degenerate times of recent history: In the fat Age of Pleasure, Wealth, and Ease, Sprung the rank Weed, and thriv’d with large Increase; When Love was all an easie Monarch’s Care; Seldom at Council, never in a War...... The following Licence of a Foreign Reign Did all the Dregs of bold Socinus drain; Then Unbelieving Priests reform’d the Nation, And taught more Pleasant Methods of Salvation; Where Heav’ns Free Subjects might their Rights dispute, Lest God himself shou’d seem too Absolute.... Encourag’d thus, Wit’s Titans brav’d the Skies... (ll. 534–537, 544–552) Pope cites two historical circumstances here. By “easie Monarch” he refers to the reign of Charles II (1660–1685), whose father King Charles I had engaged in a war with the English Parliament, provoked by his excessive authoritarianism. Having lost the war, Charles I was beheaded in 1649, and England was ruled by Parliament, under the leadership of the Puritan 53 Oliver Cromwell. Shortly after Cromwell’s death, a newly elected Parliament, reflecting the nation’s unease with the era of puritanical rule, invited Prince Charles to take the throne of England as Charles II. The new king, as Pope indicates, had a reputation for easy living, lax morality, and laziness. The reigns of Charles II and his brother James II (1685–1688) are known as the period of the Restoration (of the monarchy). Both kings were strongly pro-Catholic and aroused considerable opposition, giving rise to the second historical event to which Pope refers above, the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689. In 1688 the Protestants Prince William of Orange and his wife Mary (daughter of James II) were secretly invited to occupy the throne of England. Under their rule, which Pope refers to as the “Licence of a Foreign Reign,” a Toleration Act was passed which granted religious freedom to all Christians except Catholics and Unitarians. Also enacted into law was a Bill of Rights which granted English citizens the right to trial by jury and various other rights. Hence, as far as understanding Pope’s passage is concerned, there were two broad consequences of the Glorious Revolution. First, various impulses of the earlier Protestant Reformation, such as religious individualism and amendment of the doctrines of the Church of England, were reconfirmed. Pope refers to Faustus Socinus (1539 – 1604), who produced unorthodox doctrines denying Christ’s divinity, as being of the same theological tenor as the “Unbelieving Priests,” the Protestants, who reformed the nation. The 54 second, even more significant, consequence of the revolution was the complete triumph of Parliament over the king, the monarchy’s powers being permanently restricted. Protestantism in general had been associated with attempts to oppose absolute government; clearly, Pope’s sympathies did not lie with these movements toward democracy. Significantly, his passage above wittily intertwines these two implications of the Glorious Revolution: he speaks sarcastically of “Heav’ns Free Subjects” disputing their rights not only with temporal power but also with God himself. Such is the social background, in Pope’s estimation, of the modern decline of poetry and criticism: religious and political individualism, the craving for freedom, and the concomitant rejection of authority and tradition, underlie these same vices in the sphere of letters, vices which amount to pride and the contravention of nature. Pope now furnishes an even broader historical context for these modern ills. He traces the genealogy of “nature,” as embodied in classical authors, to Aristotle. Poets who accepted Aristotle’s rules of poetic composition, he suggests, learned that “Who conquer’d Nature, shou’d preside oe’r Wit” (l. 652). In other words, the true and false uses of wit must be judged by those who have learned the rules of nature. Likewise, Horace, the next critic in the tradition Pope cites, was “Supream in Judgment, as in Wit” and “his Precepts teach but what his Works inspire” (ll. 657, 660). Other classical critics praised by Pope are Dionysius of Halicarnassus (ca. 30–7 bc) and the Roman authors of 55 the first century Petronius and Quintilian, as well as Longinus, the first-century Greek author of On the Sublime. After these writers, who represent the classical tradition, Pope says, a dark age ensued with the collapse of the western Roman Empire at the hands of the Vandals and Goths, an age governed by “tyranny” and “superstition,” an age where “Much was Believ’d, but little understood” (ll. 686– 689). What is interesting here is that Pope sees the medieval era as a continuation of the so-called Dark Ages. He refers to the onset of medieval theology as a “second Deluge” whereby “the Monks finish’d what the Goths begun” (ll. 691–692). Hence, even though he was himself a Catholic and placed great stress on the original sin of pride, Pope seems to reject the traditions of Catholic theology as belonging to an age of superstition and irrational belief. He is writing here as a descendent of Renaissance thinkers who saw themselves as the true heirs of the classical authors and the medieval period as an aberration. What is even more striking is Pope’s subsequent praise of the Renaissance humanist thinker Desiderius Erasmus, who “drove those Holy Vandals off the Stage” (ll. 693–694). Erasmus, like Pope, had a love for the classics grounded on rationality and tolerance. He rejected ecclesiastical Christianity, theological dogmatism, and superstition in favor of a religion of simple and reasonable piety. His writings helped pave the way for the Protestant Reformation, though he himself was skeptical of the bigotry he saw on both Protestant and Catholic sides. 56  Pope’s implicit allegiance to Erasmus (and in part to contemporary figures such as Bolingbroke) points in the direction of a broad deism which, on the one hand, accommodates the significance of pride in secular rather than theological contexts, and, on the other hand, accommodates reason within its appropriate limits. His historical survey continues with praises of the “Golden Days” of Renaissance artistic accomplishments, and suggests that the arts and criticism thereafter flourished chiefly in Europe, especially in France, which produced the critic and poet Nicolas Boileau. Boileau was a classicist influenced greatly by Horace. Given Boileau’s own impact on Pope’s critical thought, we can see that Pope now begins to set the stage for his own entry into the history of criticism. While he notes that the English, “Fierce for the Liberties of Wit,” were generally impervious to foreign literary influences, he observes that a handful of English writers were more sound: they sided with “the juster Ancient Cause, / And here restor’d Wit’s Fundamental Laws” (ll. 721–722). The writers Pope now cites were either known to him or his tutors. He names the earl of Roscommon, who was acquainted with classical wit; William Walsh, his mentor; and finally himself, as offering “humble” tribute to his dead tutor (ll. 725–733). All in all, Pope’s strategy here is remarkable: in retracing the lineage of good criticism, as based on nature and the true use of wit, he traces his own lineage as both poet and critic, thereby both redefining or reaffirming the true critical tradition and marking his own entry into it. Pope 57 presents himself as abiding by and exemplifying the critical virtues he has hitherto commended. 58  The essay may be described as falling into three parts, with the following subdivisions: 1. General qualities needed by the critic (1-200): A. Awareness of his own limitations (46-67). B. Knowledge of Nature in its general forms (68-87). 1. Nature defined (70-79). 2. Need of both wit and judgment to conceive it (80-87). C. Imitation of the Ancients, and the use of rules (88- 200). 1. Value of ancient poetry and criticism as models (88-103). 2. Censure of slavish imitation and codified rules (104-117). 3. Need to study the general aims and qualities of the Ancients (118- 140). 4. Exceptions to the rules (141-168). 59 2. Particular laws for the critic (201-559): Digression on the need for humility (201-232). A. Consider the work as a total unit (233-252). B. Seek the author's aim (253-266). C. Examples of false critics who mistake the part for the whole (267-383). 1. The pedant who forgets the end and judges by rules (267-288). 2. The critic who judges by imagery and metaphor alone (289-304). 3. The rhetorician who judges by the pomp and colour of the diction (305- 336). 4. Critics who judge by versification only (337-343). Pope's digression to exemplify "representative meter" (344-383). D. Need for tolerance and for aloofness from extremes of fashion and personal mood (384-559). 60  1. The fashionable critic: the cults, as ends in themselves, of the foreign (398-405), the new (406-423), and the esoteric (424-451). 2. Personal subjectivity and its pitfalls (452-559). 3. The ideal character of the critic (560-744): A. Qualities needed: integrity (562-565), modesty (566-571), tact (572-577), courage (578-583). B. Their opposites (584-630). 61  Essay on criticism: an introduction  Pope's "Essay on Criticism" is a didactic poem in heroic couplets, begun, perhaps, as early as 1705, and published, anonymously, in 1711.  The poetic essay was a relatively new genre, and the "Essay" itself was Pope's most ambitious work to that time.  It was in part an attempt on Pope's part to identify and refine his own positions as poet and critic, and his response to an ongoing critical debate which centered on the question of whether poetry should be "natural" or written according to predetermined "artificial" rules inherited from the classical past.  The poem commences with a discussion of the rules of taste which ought to 62  govern poetry, and which enable a critic to make sound critical judgements.  In it Pope comments, too, upon the authority which ought properly to be accorded to the classical authors who dealt with the subject; and concludes (in an apparent attempt to reconcile the opinions of the advocates and opponents of rules) that the rules of the ancients are in fact identical with the rules of Nature: poetry and painting, that is, like religion and morality, actually reflect natural law.  The "Essay on Criticism," then, is deliberately ambiguous: Pope seems, on the one hand, to admit that rules are necessary for the production of and criticism of poetry, but he also notes the existence of mysterious, apparently irrational qualities — "Nameless 63 Graces," identified by terms such as "Happiness" and "Lucky Licence" — with which Nature is endowed, and which permit the true poetic genius, possessed of adequate "taste," to appear to transcend those same rules.  The critic, of course, if he is to appreciate that genius, must possess similar gifts. True Art, in other words, imitates Nature, and Nature tolerates and indeed encourages felicitous irregularities which are in reality (because Nature and the physical universe are creations of God) aspects of the divine order of things which is eternally beyond human comprehension. Only God, the infinite intellect, the purely rational being, can appreciate the harmony of the universe, but the intelligent and educated critic can appreciate poetic harmonies which echo those in nature. 64  Because his intellect and his reason are limited, however, and because his opinions are inevitably subjective, he finds it helpful or necessary to employ rules which are interpretations of the ancient principles of nature to guide him — though he should never be totally dependent upon them.  We should note, in passing, that in "The Essay on Criticism" Pope is frequently concerned with "wit".  Pope then proceeds to discuss the laws by which a critic should be guided — insisting, as any good poet would, that critics exist to serve poets, not to attack them.  He then provides, by way of example, instances of critics who had erred in one fashion or another. What, in Pope's opinion (here as elsewhere in his work) 65  is the deadliest critical sin — a sin which is itself a reflection of a greater sin?  All of his erring critics, each in their own way, betray the same fatal flaw.  The final section of the poem discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who is also the ideal man — and who, Pope laments, no longer exists in the degenerate world of the early eighteenth century. 66  "An Essay on Criticism" Paraphrase But most by numbers judge a poet's song; And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong: In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire, Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire, Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, Not mend their minds; as some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. But most people judge a poet's poem by Versification (an art of composing verse, which has special form, and emphasizing on tone). They judge a poet to be right or wrong depending on whether the tone is smooth or rough. 67 Though thousands of charm conspires the bright Muse, her voice is all these tuneful fools, who haunt Parnassus but to please their ears, admire. These fools are just as some people who go to church repair for the music there but not for the doctrine. These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire, While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line, While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes. These syllables are required equally long, though the ear often tired with the open vowels. While expletives do join their feeble aid and ten low words are often placed in one dull line. While they ring the same unchanged chimes over and with certain returns which is expected rhymes. 68 Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze", In the next line, it "whispers through the trees": If "crystal streams with pleasing murmurs creep", The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep". Whenever you find " the cooling western breeze", whispers through the trees" appear in the next line. If there is line saying a crystal stream, "with pleasing murmurs creep" will follow behind. Then readers can predict the following word to be " sleep." Then, at the last andonly couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Then, at the end a couplet contains with some unmeaning things that those poets call a thought ends the poem with a needless Alexandrine. (A line verse containing six iambic feet) And it is like a wounded snake, dragging its body crawling away. 69 Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigor of a line, Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. The poets tune their poem with the dull rhymes and said that was roundly smooth and languishingly slow. And people praised the easy vigor of a line in the poem, and said that was combined Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. ' Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance; it is just like those who have learned to dance can move in the easiest way. It's not enough emphasizing on sound only, the sound must correspond to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; 70 But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. (Pope gave several examples to show how the meaning in the poem correspond to the sound. They are as following.) When describing zephyr blows gently, the strain is soft and the smooth stream flows in smoother numbers. But when describing loud surges lash the sounding shore, the hoarse, rough verse should be like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the' unbending corn, and skims along the main. (Two more examples were given here.) The line and the word move slow to show that Ajax strives to throw a rock of vest weight. Like Camilla swiftly scours the plain, flying over the unbending corn, and skims along the ocean. Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise! 71 While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: (One more example given.) Just hear how the poem Timotheus' varied the lines to be full of surprises to make readers' feeling fall and rise with these changes. We can see those undulation in the son of Libyan Jove. (Then Pope retells the story of that poem in the following lines.)"Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow; Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow." Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, And the world's victor stood subdued by sound! The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now. Persians and Greeks are apt to use the turns of nature to express their thought and those famous poets now insist to be covecame by rhyme (to focus on rhyme.) But the power of music should allow our hearts to lead out 72 emotion like the poem "Timotheus"did and the way Dryden is doing now. Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope 'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill Appear in Writing or in Judging ill, But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence, To tire our Patience, than mis-lead 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 Critick's Share; Both must alike from Heav'n derive their Light, These born to Judge, as well as those to Write. Let such teach others who themselves excell, And censure freely who have written well. Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true, But are not Criticks to their Judgment too? 73 Yet if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the Seeds of Judgment in their Mind; Nature affords at least a glimm'ring Light; The Lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right. But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd, Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd, So by false Learning is good Sense defac'd. Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools, And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools. In search of Wit these lose their common Sense, And then turn Criticks in their own Defence. 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 wou'd be upon the Laughing Side; If Maevius Scribble in Apollo's spight, There are, who judge still worse than he can write Some have at first for Wits, then Poets past, Turn'd Criticks next, and prov'd plain Fools atlast; Some neither can for Wits nor Criticks pass, As heavy Mules are neither Horse or Ass. Those half-learn'd Witlings, num'rous in our Isle, As half-form'd Insects on the Banks of Nile: Unfinish'd Things, one knows now what to call, 74 Their Generation's so equivocal: To tell 'em, wou'd a hundred Tongues require, Or one vain Wit's, that might a hundred tire. But you who seek to give and merit Fame, And justly bear a Critick's noble Name, Be sure your self 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 Dulness meet. Nature to all things fix'd the Limits fit, And wisely curb'd 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 Pow'r 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, confin'd to single Parts. Like Kings we lose the Conquests gain'd before, By vain Ambition still to make them more: 75 Each might his sev'ral Province well command, Wou'd 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, unchang'd 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 th' informing Soul With Spirits feeds, with Vigour fills the whole, Each Motion guides, and ev'ry Nerve sustains; It self unseen, but in th' Effects, remains. Some, to whom Heav'n in Wit has been profuse. Want as much more, to turn it to its use, For Wit and Judgment often are at strife, Tho' 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 gen'rous Horse, Shows most true Mettle when you check his Course. 76 Those RULES of old discover'd, not devis'd, Are Nature still, but Nature Methodiz'd; Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd By the same Laws which first herself ordain'd. Hear how learn'd Greece her useful Rules indites, When to repress, and when indulge our Flights: High on Parnassus' Top her Sons she show'd, And pointed out those arduous Paths they trod, Held from afar, aloft, th' Immortal Prize, And urg'd the rest by equal Steps to rise; Just Precepts thus from great Examples giv'n, She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n The gen'rous Critick fann'd the Poet's Fire, And taught the World, with Reason to Admire. Then Criticism the Muse's Handmaid prov'd, To dress her Charms, and make her more belov'd; But following Wits from that Intention stray'd; Who cou'd not win the Mistress, woo'd the Maid; Against the Poets their own Arms they turn'd, Sure to hate most the Men from whom they learn'd So modern Pothecaries, taught the Art By Doctor's Bills to play the Doctor's Part, Bold in the Practice of mistaken Rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their Masters Fools. 77 Some on the Leaves of ancient Authors prey, Nor Time nor Moths e'er spoil'd so much as they: Some dryly plain, without Invention's Aid, Write dull Receits how Poems may be made: These leave the Sense, their Learning to display, And theme explain the Meaning quite away You then whose Judgment the right Course wou'd steer, Know well each ANCIENT's proper Character, His Fable, Subject, Scope in ev'ry Page, Religion, Country, Genius of his Age: Without all these at once before your Eyes, Cavil you may, but never Criticize. Be Homer's 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 It self compar'd, his Text peruse; And let your Comment be the Mantuan Muse. When first young Maro in his boundless Mind A Work t' outlast Immortal Rome design'd, Perhaps he seem'd above the Critick's Law, And but from Nature's Fountains scorn'd to draw: But when t'examine ev'ry Part he came, Nature and Homer were, he found, the same: Convinc'd, amaz'd, he checks the bold Design, 78 And Rules as strict his labour'd Work confine, As if the Stagyrite o'er looked each Line. 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. Musick 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 LICENCE answers to the full Th' Intent propos'd, that Licence 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 Criticks dare not mend; From vulgar Bounds with brave Disorder part, And snatch a Grace beyond the Reach of Art, Which, without passing thro' 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. 79 But tho' 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 compell'd by Need, And have, at least, Their Precedent to plead. The Critick else proceeds without Remorse, Seizes your Fame, and puts his Laws in force. I know there are, to whose presumptuous Thoughts Those Freer Beauties, ev'n in Them, seem Faults: Some Figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportion'd to their Light, or Place, Due Distance reconciles to Form and Grace. A prudent Chief not always must display His Pow'rs in equal Ranks, and fair Array, But with th' 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. Still green with Bays each ancient Altar stands, Above the reach of Sacrilegious Hands, Secure from Flames, from Envy's fiercer Rage, 80 Destructive War, and all-involving Age. See, from each Clime the Learn'd their Incense bring; Hear, in all Tongues consenting Paeans ring! In Praise so just, let ev'ry Voice be join'd, And fill the Gen'ral Chorus of Mankind! Hail Bards Triumphant! born in happier Days; Immortal Heirs of Universal Praise! Whose Honours with Increase of Ages grow, As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow! Nations unborn your mighty Names shall sound, And Worlds applaud that must not yet be found! Oh may some Spark of your Coelestial 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, T' admire Superior Sense, and doubt their own! Of all the Causes which conspire to blind Man's erring Judgment, and misguide the Mind, What the weak Head with strongest Byass rules, Is Pride, the never-failing Vice of Fools. Whatever Nature has in Worth deny'd, She gives in large Recruits of needful Pride; For as in Bodies, thus in Souls, we find 81 What wants in Blood and Spirits, swell'd with Wind; Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our Defence, And fills up all the mighty Void of Sense! If once right Reason drives that Cloud away, Truth breaks upon us with resistless Day; Trust not your self; but your Defects to know, Make use of ev'ry Friend--and ev'ry Foe. A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fir'd at first Sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts, While from the bounded Level of our Mind, Short Views we take, nor see the lengths behind, But more advanc'd, behold with strange Surprize New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise! So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try, Mount o'er the Vales, and seem to tread the Sky; Th' Eternal Snows appear already past, And the first Clouds and Mountains seem the last: But those attain'd, we tremble to survey The growing Labours of the lengthen'd Way, 82 Th' increasing Prospect tires our wandering Eyes, Hills peep o'er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise! 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; Nor lose, for that malignant dull Delight, The gen'rous Pleasure to be charm'd with Wit. But in such Lays as neither ebb, nor flow, Correctly cold, and regularly low, That shunning Faults, one quiet Tenour keep; We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep. In Wit, as Nature, what affects our Hearts Is nor th' Exactness of peculiar Parts; 'Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call, But the joint Force and full Result of all. Thus when we view some well-proportion'd Dome, The World's just Wonder, and ev'n thine O Rome!) No single Parts unequally surprize; All comes united to th' admiring Eyes; No monstrous Height, or Breadth, or Length appear; The Whole at once is Bold, and Regular. 83 Whoever thinks a faultless Piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. In ev'ry Work regard the Writer's End, Since none can compass more than they Intend; And if the Means be just, the Conduct true, Applause, in spite of trivial Faults, is due. As Men of Breeding, sometimes Men of Wit, T' avoid great Errors, must the less commit, Neglect the Rules each Verbal Critick lays, For not to know some Trifles, is a Praise. Most Criticks, fond of some subservient Art, Still make the Whole depend upon a Part, They talk of Principles, but Notions prize, And All to one lov'd Folly Sacrifice. Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight, they say, A certain Bard encountring on the Way, Discours'd in Terms as just, with Looks as Sage, As e'er cou'd Dennis, of the Grecian Stage; Concluding all were desp'rate Sots and Fools, Who durst depart from Aristotle's Rules. Our Author, happy in a Judge so nice, Produc'd his Play, and beg'd the Knight's Advice, Made him observe the Subject and the Plot, The Manners, Passions, Unities, what not? 84 All which, exact to Rule were brought about, Were but a Combate in the Lists left out. What! Leave the Combate out? Exclaims the Knight; Yes, or we must renounce the Stagyrite. Not so by Heav'n (he answers in a Rage) Knights, Squires, and Steeds, must enter on the Stage. So vast a Throng the Stage can ne'er contain. Then build a New, or act it in a Plain. Thus Criticks, of less Judgment than Caprice, Curious, not Knowing, not exact, but nice, Form short Ideas; and offend in Arts (As most in Manners) by a Love to Parts. Some to Conceit alone their Taste confine, And glitt'ring Thoughts struck out at ev'ry Line; Pleas'd with a Work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring Chaos and wild Heap of Wit; Poets like Painters, thus, unskill'd to trace The naked Nature and the living Grace, With Gold and Jewels cover ev'ry Part, And hide with Ornaments their Want of Art. True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest, Something, whose Truth convinc'd at Sight we find, 85 That gives us back the Image of our Mind: As Shades more sweetly recommend the Light, So modest Plainness sets off sprightly Wit: For Works may have more Wit than does 'em good, As Bodies perish through Excess of Blood. Others for Language all their Care express, And value Books, as Women Men, for Dress: Their Praise is still--The Stile is excellent: The Sense, they humbly take upon Content. Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found. False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass, Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev'ry place; The Face of Nature was no more Survey, All glares alike, without Distinction gay: But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun, Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon, It gilds all Objects, but it alters none. Expression is the Dress of Thought, and still Appears more decent as more suitable; A vile Conceit in pompous Words exprest, Is like a Clown in regal Purple drest; For diff'rent Styles with diff'rent Subjects sort, As several Garbs with Country, Town, and Court. Some by Old Words to Fame have made Pretence; 86 Ancients in Phrase, meer Moderns in their Sense! Such labour'd Nothings, in so strange a Style, Amaze th'unlearn'd, and make the Learned Smile. Unlucky, as Fungoso in the Play, These Sparks with aukward Vanity display What the Fine Gentleman wore Yesterday! And but so mimick ancient Wits at best, As Apes our Grandsires in their Doublets treat. In