Pope'S Essay On Criticism Summary

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.

In wit, as nature, what effects our hearts Is not th'exactness of peculiar parts; 'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.” ― “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.

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.

A Muse by these is like a mistress used, This hour she's idolized, the next abused; While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.

Ask them the cause; they're wiser still they say; And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.” ― “Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense!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.Pope's An Essay on Criticism When Samuel Johnson ascribed to a new work "such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of both ancient and modern learning as not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience," he was speaking of young Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (1711), written when he was about twenty, and published when he was only twenty-three years old (in Mack 177).1 Others have not been as generous in their comments about the prodigy's efforts.One history of criticism textbook describes the work rather ingloriously: "There are repetitions and inconsistencies, some conventional pronouncements along with injunctions of lasting value; Also, De Quincey's remarks in the seventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1842) set the pace for many future diagnoses of the work: "It is a collection of independent maxims, tied together into a fasciculus [small bundle] by the printer, but having no natural order or logical dependency: generally so vague as to mean nothing" (in Morris 145).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.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.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.” ― “So pleas'd at first the tow'ring 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; Th'increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!” ― “Nature to all things fixed the limits fit And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains Thus in the soul while memory prevails, The solid power of understanding fails Where beams of warm imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away One science only will one genius fit, So vast is art, so narrow human wit Not only bounded to peculiar arts, But oft in those confined to single parts Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before, By vain ambition still to make them more Each might his several province well command, Would all but stoop to what they understand.” ― “Be silent always when you doubt your sense; And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence: Some positive, persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you, with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critic on the last.” ― “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; ....