Editing An Essay on Criticism

{{Short description|English poem by Alexander Pope}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2023}}
[[Image:POPE(1722) Essay on Criticism.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece]]
'''''An Essay on Criticism''''' is one of the first major poems written by the English writer [[Alexander Pope]] (1688–1744), published in 1711. It is the source of the famous quotations "To err is human; to forgive, divine", "A little learning is a dang'rous thing" (frequently misquoted as "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing"), and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".

== Composition ==

The first fragmentary drafts of the work were written in [[Abberley]] in 1707.<ref>Mack 1985, p. 168.</ref> It was first published in May 1711.<ref>Mack 1985, p. 177.</ref> Many of the poem's ideas had existed in prose form since at least 1706. Composed in [[heroic couplets]] (pairs of adjacent rhyming lines of [[iambic pentameter]]) and written in the [[Satire#Horatian|Horatian mode]] of satire, it is a verse essay primarily concerned with how writers and critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope's contemporary age. The poem covers a range of good criticism and advice, and represents many of the chief literary ideals of Pope's age.

==Structure and themes==
The verse "essay" was not an uncommon form in eighteenth-century poetry, deriving ultimately from classical forebears including Horace's ''[[Ars Poetica (Horace)|Ars Poetica]]'' and Lucretius' ''[[De rerum natura]]''.<ref>Sitter 2011, p. 34.</ref>

Pope contends in the poem's opening couplets that bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing:
{{poemquote|
'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''.<ref>Pope 1963, p. 144</ref>
|source=lines 1–8}}

Pope delineates common faults of poets, e.g., settling for easy and clichéd rhymes:{{poemquote|
And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line,
While they ring round the same ''unvary'd Chimes'',
With sure ''Returns'' of still ''expected Rhymes''.
Where-e'er you find ''the cooling Western Breeze'',
In the next Line, it ''whispers thro' the Trees'';
If ''Crystal Streams with pleasing Murmurs creep'',
The Reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with ''Sleep''.<ref>Pope 1963, p. 154</ref>
|source=lines 347–353}}

Throughout the poem, Pope refers to ancient writers such as [[Virgil]], [[Homer]], [[Aristotle]], [[Horace]] and [[Longinus (literature)|Longinus]]. This is a testament to his belief that the "Imitation of the ancients" is the ultimate standard for taste. Pope also says, "True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,/ As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance" (362–363),<ref>Pope 1963, p. 155</ref> meaning poets are made, not born.

As is usual in Pope's poems, the ''Essay'' concludes with a reference to Pope himself. [[William Walsh (poet)|William Walsh]], the last of the critics mentioned, was a mentor and friend of Pope who had died in 1708.

{{Anchor|learningQuote}}Part II of ''An Essay on Criticism'' includes a famous couplet:
{{poemquote|
A ''little Learning'' is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the [[Pierian spring|''Pierian'' Spring]]:<ref>Pope 1963, p. 151</ref>
|source=lines 215–216}}

This is in reference to the spring in the [[Pierian Mountains]] in Macedonia, sacred to the [[Muse]]s. The first line of this couplet is often misquoted as "a little ''knowledge'' is a dangerous thing".

The ''Essay'' also gives this famous line (towards the end of Part II):
{{poemquote|
To Err is ''Human''; to Forgive, ''Divine''.<ref>Pope 1963, p. 160</ref>
|source=line 525}}

The phrase "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" from Part III (line 625<ref>Pope 1963, p. 163</ref>) has become part of the popular lexicon, and has been used for and in various works.<ref>In the 1947 film ''[[The Bishop's Wife]]'', Dudley—an angel—at one point says to the bishop, "Angels rush in where fools fear to tread," playing on this phrase (while disrupting its [[metre|metrical]] pattern).</ref>

== Critical reception ==

''An Essay on Criticism'' was famously and fiercely attacked by [[John Dennis (dramatist)|John Dennis]], who is mentioned mockingly in the work. Consequently, Dennis also appears in Pope's later satire, ''[[The Dunciad]]''.

[[Thomas Rymer]] and [[Jonathan Swift]] were among other critics: Rymer, who had the strongest critique said, "till of late years England was as free from critics as it is from wolves...they who are least acquainted with the game are aptest to bark at everything that comes in their way."; Swift's statement concentrated on critics who were damned "as barbarous as a judge who should take up a resolution to hang all men that came before him upon trial."

== Notes ==
{{reflist}}

== References ==
* {{cite book |author=Mack, Maynard |year=1985 |publisher=Yale University Press |title=Alexander Pope: A Life |isbn=0-300-03391-5 |author-link=Maynard Mack |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/trent_0116404272902 }}
* {{cite book |last=Pope |first=Alexander |author-link=Alexander Pope |editor-last=Butt |editor-first=John |title=The Poems of Alexander Pope |edition=a one-volume edition of the Twickenham text |date=1963 |publisher=Yale University Press |oclc=855720858 |isbn=0300003404 |url=https://archive.org/details/poemsofalexander00pope}}
* {{Cite book|title=The restoration and the eighteenth century|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Martin|editor-link=Martin Price (critic)|date=1973|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-501614-9|location=New York|pages=311–312|oclc=2341106}}
* {{cite book |author=Sitter, John |title= The Cambridge Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Poetry |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-521-84824-4}}

== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource}}
* [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o3675-w0010.shtml ''An Essay on Criticism''] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)]
<!-- link doesn't work *[http://eserver.org/poetry/essay-on-criticism.html Full text of the ''Essay''] -->
{{Gutenberg|no=7409|name=An Essay on Criticism}} (much punctuation is missing)
*[http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/batewj/pope.htm A Study Guide for the ''Essay'', by Walter Jackson Bate]
* {{librivox book | title=An Essay on Criticism | author=Alexander POPE}}

{{Alexander Pope}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Essay on Criticism}}
[[Category:British poems]]
[[Category:Works by Alexander Pope]]
[[Category:1711 poems]]