essay on criticism analysis line by line

An Essay on Criticism Summary & Analysis by Alexander Pope

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Poetic Devices
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
Line-by-Line Explanations

Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" seeks to lay down rules of good taste in poetry criticism, and in poetry itself. Structured as an essay in rhyming verse, it offers advice to the aspiring critic while satirizing amateurish criticism and poetry. The famous passage beginning "A little learning is a dangerous thing" advises would-be critics to learn their field in depth, warning that the arts demand much longer and more arduous study than beginners expect. The passage can also be read as a warning against shallow learning in general. Published in 1711, when Alexander Pope was just 23, the "Essay" brought its author fame and notoriety while he was still a young poet himself.

Read the full text of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

The Full Text of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

1 A little learning is a dangerous thing;

2 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

3 There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

4 And drinking largely sobers us again.

5 Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

6 In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,

7 While from the bounded level of our mind,

8 Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,

9 But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise

10 New, distant scenes of endless science rise!

11 So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try,

12 Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;

13 The eternal snows appear already past,

14 And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

15 But those attained, we tremble to survey

16 The growing labours of the lengthened way,

17 The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,

18 Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Summary

“from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” themes.

Shallow Learning vs. Deep Understanding

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fired 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 advanced, behold with strange surprise New, distant scenes of endless science rise!

Lines 11-14

So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; The eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

Lines 15-18

But those attained, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthened way, The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Symbols

The Mountains/Alps

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“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

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Extended Metaphor

“from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

A little learning
Pierian spring
Bounded level
Short views
The lengthened way
See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

Rhyme scheme, “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” speaker, “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” setting, literary and historical context of “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing”, more “from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” resources, external resources.

The Poem Aloud — Listen to an audiobook of Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (the "A little learning" passage starts at 12:57).

The Poet's Life — Read a biography of Alexander Pope at the Poetry Foundation.

"Alexander Pope: Rediscovering a Genius" — Watch a BBC documentary on Alexander Pope.

More on Pope's Life — A summary of Pope's life and work at Poets.org.

Pope at the British Library — More resources and articles on the poet.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Alexander Pope

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Home › Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism

Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 8, 2020 • ( 1 )

An Essay on Criticism (1711) was Pope’s first independent work, published anonymously through an obscure bookseller [12–13]. Its implicit claim to authority is not based on a lifetime’s creative work or a prestigious commission but, riskily, on the skill and argument of the poem alone. It offers a sort of master-class not only in doing criticism but in being a critic:addressed to those – it could be anyone – who would rise above scandal,envy, politics and pride to true judgement, it leads the reader through a qualifying course. At the end, one does not become a professional critic –the association with hired writing would have been a contaminating one for Pope – but an educated judge of important critical matters.

But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ Offence, To tire our Patience, than mislead our Sense: Some few in that, but Numbers err in this, Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss; A Fool might once himself alone expose, Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

The simple opposition we began with develops into a more complex suggestion that more unqualified people are likely to set up for critic than for poet, and that such a proliferation is serious. Pope’s typographically-emphasised oppositions between poetry and criticism, verse and prose,patience and sense, develop through the passage into a wider account of the problem than first proposed: the even-handed balance of the couplets extends beyond a simple contrast. Nonetheless, though Pope’s oppositions divide, they also keep within a single framework different categories of writing: Pope often seems to be addressing poets as much as critics. The critical function may well depend on a poetic function: this is after all an essay on criticism delivered in verse, and thus acting also as poetry and offering itself for criticism. Its blurring of categories which might otherwise be seen as fundamentally distinct, and its often slippery transitions from area to area, are part of the poem’s comprehensive,educative character.

Literary Criticism of Alexander Pope

Addison, who considered the poem ‘a Master-piece’, declared that its tone was conversational and its lack of order was not problematic: ‘The Observations follow one another like those in Horace’s Art of Poetry, without that Methodical Regularity which would have been requisite in a Prose Author’ (Barnard 1973: 78). Pope, however, decided during the revision of the work for the 1736 Works to divide the poem into three sections, with numbered sub-sections summarizing each segment of argument. This impluse towards order is itself illustrative of tensions between creative and critical faculties, an apparent casualness of expression being given rigour by a prose skeleton. The three sections are not equally balanced, but offer something like the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of logical argumentation – something which exceeds the positive-negative opposition suggested by the couplet format. The first section (1–200) establishes the basic possibilities for critical judgement;the second (201–559) elaborates the factors which hinder such judgement;and the third (560–744) celebrates the elements which make up true critical behaviour.

Part One seems to begin by setting poetic genius and critical taste against each other, while at the same time limiting the operation of teaching to those ‘who have written well ’ ( EC, 11–18). The poem immediately stakes an implicit claim for the poet to be included in the category of those who can ‘write well’ by providing a flamboyant example of poetic skill in the increasingly satiric portrayal of the process by which failed writers become critics: ‘Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,/Or with a Rival’s, or an Eunuch ’s spite’ ( EC, 29–30). At the bottom of the heap are ‘half-learn’d Witlings, num’rous in our Isle’, pictured as insects in an early example of Pope’s favourite image of teeming, writerly promiscuity (36–45). Pope then turns his attention back to the reader,conspicuously differentiated from this satiric extreme: ‘ you who seek to give and merit Fame’ (the combination of giving and meriting reputation again links criticism with creativity). The would-be critic, thus selected, is advised to criticise himself first of all, examining his limits and talents and keeping to the bounds of what he knows (46-67); this leads him to the most major of Pope’s abstract quantities within the poem (and within his thought in general): Nature.

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 Te s t of Art.

( EC, 68–73)

Dennis complained that Pope should have specified ‘what he means by Nature, and what it is to write or to judge according to Nature’ ( TE I: 219),and modern analyses have the burden of Romantic deifications of Nature to discard: Pope’s Nature is certainly not some pantheistic, powerful nurturer, located outside social settings, as it would be for Wordsworth,though like the later poets Pope always characterises Nature as female,something to be quested for by male poets [172]. Nature would include all aspects of the created world, including the non-human, physical world, but the advice on following Nature immediately follows the advice to study one’s own internal ‘Nature’, and thus means something like an instinctively-recognised principle of ordering, derived from the original,timeless, cosmic ordering of God (the language of the lines implicitly aligns Nature with God; those that follow explicitly align it with the soul). Art should be derived from Nature, should seek to replicate Nature, and can be tested against the unaltering standard of Nature, which thus includes Reason and Truth as reflections of the mind of the original poet-creator, God.

In a fallen universe, however, apprehension of Nature requires assistance: internal gifts alone do not suffice.

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.

( EC, 80–03)

Wit, the second of Pope’s abstract qualities, is here seamlessly conjoined with the discussion of Nature: for Pope, Wit means not merely quick verbal humour but something almost as important as Nature – a power of invention and perception not very different from what we would mean by intelligence or imagination. Early critics again seized on the first version of these lines (which Pope eventually altered to the reading given here) as evidence of Pope’s inability to make proper distinctions: he seems to suggest that a supply of Wit sometimes needs more Wit to manage it, and then goes on to replace this conundrum with a more familiar opposition between Wit (invention) and Judgment (correction). But Pope stood by the essential point that Wit itself could be a form of Judgment and insisted that though the marriage between these qualities might be strained, no divorce was possible.

Nonetheless, some external prop to Wit was necessary, and Pope finds this in those ‘RULES’ of criticism derived from Nature:

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.

( EC, 88–91)

Nature, as Godlike principle of order, is ‘discover’d’ to operate according to certain principles stated in critical treatises such as Aristotle’s Poetics or Horace’s Ars Poetica (or Pope’s Essay on Criticism ). In the golden age of Greece (92–103), Criticism identified these Rules of Nature in early poetry and taught their use to aspiring poets. Pope contrasts this with the activities of critics in the modern world, where often criticism is actively hostile to poetry, or has become an end in itself (114–17). Right judgement must separate itself out from such blind alleys by reading Homer: ‘ You then whose Judgment the right Course would steer’ ( EC, 118) can see yourself in the fable of ‘young Maro ’ (Virgil), who is pictured discovering to his amazement the perfect original equivalence between Homer, Nature, and the Rules (130–40). Virgil the poet becomes a sort of critical commentary on the original source poet of Western literature,Homer. With assurance bordering consciously on hyperbole, Pope can instruct us: ‘Learn hence for Ancient Rules a just Esteem;/To copy Nature is to copy Them ’ ( EC, 139–40).

Despite the potential for neat conclusion here, Pope has a rider to offer,and again it is one which could be addressed to poet or critic: ‘Some Beauties yet, no Precepts can declare,/For there’s a Happiness as well as Care ’ ( EC, 141–2). As well as the prescriptions of Aristotelian poetics,Pope draws on the ancient treatise ascribed to Longinus and known as On the Sublime [12]. Celebrating imaginative ‘flights’ rather than representation of nature, Longinus figures in Pope’s poem as a sort of paradox:

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.

( EC, 152–7)

This occasional imaginative rapture, not predictable by rule, is an important concession, emphasised by careful typographic signalling of its paradoxical nature (‘ gloriously offend ’, and so on); but it is itself countered by the caution that ‘The Critick’ may ‘put his Laws in force’ if such licence is unjustifiably used. Pope here seems to align the ‘you’ in the audience with poet rather than critic, and in the final lines of the first section it is the classical ‘ Bards Triumphant ’ who remain unassailably immortal, leavingPope to pray for ‘some Spark of your Coelestial Fire’ ( EC, 195) to inspire his own efforts (as ‘The last, the meanest of your Sons’, EC, 196) to instruct criticism through poetry.

Following this ringing prayer for the possibility of reestablishing a critical art based on poetry, Part II (200-559) elaborates all the human psychological causes which inhibit such a project: pride, envy,sectarianism, a love of some favourite device at the expense of overall design. The ideal critic will reflect the creative mind, and will seek to understand the whole work rather than concentrate on minute infractions of critical laws:

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;

( EC, 233–6)

Most critics (and poets) err by having a fatal predisposition towards some partial aspect of poetry: ornament, conceit, style, or metre, which they use as an inflexible test of far more subtle creations. Pope aims for akind of poetry which is recognisable and accessible in its entirety:

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, That gives us back the Image of our Mind:

( EC, 296–300)

This is not to say that style alone will do, as Pope immediately makesplain (305–6): the music of poetry, the ornament of its ‘numbers’ or rhythm, is only worth having because ‘The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense ’ ( EC, 365). Pope performs and illustrates a series of poetic clichés – the use of open vowels, monosyllabic lines, and cheap rhymes:

Tho’ oft the Ear the open Vowels tire … ( EC , 345) And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line … ( EC , 347) Where-e’er you find the cooling Western Breeze, In the next Line, it whispers thro’ the Trees … ( EC, 350–1)

These gaffes are contrasted with more positive kinds of imitative effect:

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 shou’d like the Torrent roar.

( EC, 366–9)

Again, this functions both as poetic instance and as critical test, working examples for both classes of writer.

After a long series of satiric vignettes of false critics, who merely parrot the popular opinion, or change their minds all the time, or flatter aristocratic versifiers, or criticise poets rather than poetry (384-473), Pope again switches attention to educated readers, encouraging (or cajoling)them towards staunchly independent and generous judgment within what is described as an increasingly fraught cultural context, threatened with decay and critical warfare (474–525). But, acknowledging that even‘Noble minds’ will have some ‘Dregs … of Spleen and sow’r Disdain’ ( EC ,526–7), Pope advises the critic to ‘Discharge that Rage on more ProvokingCrimes,/Nor fear a Dearth in these Flagitious Times’ (EC, 528–9): obscenity and blasphemy are unpardonable and offer a kind of lightning conductor for critics to purify their own wit against some demonised object of scorn.

If the first parts of An Essay on Criticism outline a positive classical past and troubled modern present, Part III seeks some sort of resolved position whereby the virtues of one age can be maintained during the squabbles of the other. The opening seeks to instill the correct behaviour in the critic –not merely rules for written criticism, but, so to speak, for enacted criticism, a sort of ‘ Good Breeding ’ (EC, 576) which politely enforces without seeming to enforce:

LEARN then what MORALS Criticks ought to show, For ’tis but half a Judge’s Task , to Know. ’Tis not enough, Taste, Judgment, Learning, join; In all you speak, let Truth and Candor shine … Be silent always when you doubt your Sense; And speak, tho’ sure , with seeming Diffidence …Men must be taught as if you taught them not; And Things unknown propos’d as Things forgot:

( EC , 560–3, 566–7, 574–5)

This ideally-poised man of social grace cannot be universally successful: some poets, as some critics, are incorrigible and it is part of Pope’s education of the poet-critic to leave them well alone. Synthesis, if that is being offered in this final part, does not consist of gathering all writers into one tidy fold but in a careful discrimination of true wit from irredeemable ‘dulness’ (584–630).

Thereafter, Pope has two things to say. One is to set a challenge to contemporary culture by asking ‘where’s the Man’ who can unite all necessary humane and intellectual qualifications for the critic ( EC, 631–42), and be a sort of walking oxymoron, ‘Modestly bold, and humanly severe’ in his judgements. The other is to insinuate an answer. Pope offers deft characterisations of critics from Aristotle to Pope who achieve the necessary independence from extreme positions: Aristotle’s primary treatise is likened to an imaginative voyage into the land of Homer which becomes the source of legislative power; Horace is the poetic model for friendly conversational advice; Quintilian is a useful store of ‘the justest Rules, and clearest Method join’d’; Longinus is inspired by the Muses,who ‘bless their Critick with a Poet’s Fire’ ( EC, 676). These pairs include and encapsulate all the precepts recommended in the body of the poem. But the empire of good sense, Pope reminds us, fell apart after the fall of Rome,leaving nothing but monkish superstition, until the scholar Erasmus,always Pope’s model of an ecumenical humanist, reformed continental scholarship (693-696). Renaissance Italy shows a revival of arts, including criticism; France, ‘a Nation born to serve’ ( EC , 713) fossilised critical and poetic practice into unbending rules; Britain, on the other hand, ‘ Foreign Laws despis’d,/And kept unconquer’d, and unciviliz’d’ ( EC, 715–16) – a deftly ironic modulation of what appears to be a patriotic celebration intosomething more muted. Pope does however cite two earlier verse essays (by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, and Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon) [13] before paying tribute to his own early critical mentor, William Walsh, who had died in 1708 [9]. Sheffield and Dillon were both poets who wrote criticism in verse, but Walsh was not a poet; in becoming the nearest modern embodiment of the ideal critic, his ‘poetic’ aspect becomes Pope himself, depicted as a mixture of moderated qualities which reminds us of the earlier ‘Where’s the man’ passage: he is quite possibly here,

Careless of Censure , nor too fond of Fame, Still pleas’d to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to Flatter , or Offend, Not free from Faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

( EC , 741–44)

It is a kind of leading from the front, or tuition by example, as recommended and practised by the poem. From an apparently secondary,even negative, position (writing on criticism, which the poem sees as secondary to poetry), the poem ends up founding criticism on poetry, and deriving poetry from the (ideal) critic.

Early criticism celebrated the way the poem seemed to master and exemplify its own stated ideals, just as Pope had said of Longinus that he ‘Is himself that great Sublime he draws’ ( EC, 680). It is a poem profuse with images, comparisons and similes. Johnson thought the longest example,that simile comparing student’s progress in learning with a traveller’s journey in Alps was ‘perhaps the best that English poetry can shew’: ‘The simile of the Alps has no useless parts, yet affords a striking picture by itself: it makes the foregoing position better understood, and enables it to take faster hold on the attention; it assists the apprehension, and elevates the fancy’ (Johnson 1905: 229–30). Many of the abstract precepts aremade visible in this way: private judgment is like one’s reliance on one’s(slightly unreliable) watch (9– 10); wit and judgment are like man and wife(82–3); critics are like pharmacists trying to be doctors (108–11). Much ofthe imagery is military or political, indicating something of the social role(as legislator in the universal empire of poetry) the critic is expected toadopt; we are also reminded of the decay of empires, and the potentialdecay of cultures (there is something of The Dunciad in the poem). Muchof it is religious, as with the most famous phrases from the poem (‘For Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’; ‘To err is human, to forgive, divine’), indicating the level of seriousness which Pope accords the matterof poetry. Much of it is sexual: creativity is a kind of manliness, wooing Nature, or the Muse, to ‘generate’ poetic issue, and false criticism, likeobscenity, derives from a kind of inner ‘impotence’. Patterns of suchimagery can be harnessed to ‘organic’ readings of the poem’s wholeness. But part of the life of the poem, underlying its surface statements andmetaphors, is its continual shifts of focus, its reminders of that which liesoutside the tidying power of couplets, its continual reinvention of the ‘you’opposed to the ‘they’ of false criticism, its progressive displacement of theopposition you thought you were looking at with another one whichrequires your attention.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Atkins, G. Douglas (1986): Quests of Difference: Reading Pope’s Poems (Lexing-ton: Kentucky State University Press) Barnard, John, ed. (1973): Pope: The Critical Heritage (London and Boston:Routledge and Kegan Paul) Bateson, F.W. and Joukovsky, N.A., eds, (1971): Alexander Pope: A Critical Anthology (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books) Brower, Reuben (1959): Alexander Pope: The Poetry of Allusion (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Brown, Laura (1985): Alexander Pope (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) Davis, Herbert ed. (1966): Pope: Poetical Works (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress Dixon, Peter, ed. (1972): Alexander Pope (London: G. Bell and Sons) Empson, William (1950): ‘Wit in the Essay on Criticism ’, Hudson Review, 2: 559–77 Erskine-Hill, Howard and Smith, Anne, eds (1979): The Art of Alexander Pope (London: Vision Press) Erskine-Hill, Howard (1982): ‘Alexander Pope: The Political Poet in his Time’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 15: 123–148 Fairer, David (1984): Pope’s Imagination (Manchester: Manchester University Press) Fairer, David, ed. (1990): Pope: New Contexts (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf) Morris, David B. (1984): Alexander Pope: The Genius of Sense (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) Nuttall, A.D. (1984): Pope’s ‘ Essay on Man’ (London: George Allen and Unwin) Rideout, Tania (1992): ‘The Reasoning Eye: Alexander Pope’s Typographic Vi-sion in the Essay on Man’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 55:249–62 Rogers, Pat (1993a): Alexander Pope (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Rogers, Pat (1993b): Essay s on Pope (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Savage, Roger (1988) ‘Antiquity as Nature: Pope’s Fable of “Young Maro”’, in An Essay on Criticism, in Nicholson (1988), 83–116 Schmitz, R. M. (1962): Pope’s Essay on Criticism 1709: A Study of the BodleianMS Text, with Facsimiles, Transcripts and Variants (St Louis: Washington University Press) Warren, Austin (1929): Alexander Pope as Critic and Humanist (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press) Woodman, Thomas (1989): Politeness and Poetry in the Age of Pope (Rutherford,New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press)

An Essay on Criticism

Alexander Pope wrote An Essay on Criticism shortly after turning 21 years old in 1711. While remaining the speaker within his own poem Pope is able to present his true viewpoints on writing styles both as they are and how he feels they should be. While his poetic essay, written in heroic couplets, may not have obtained the same status as others of his time, it was certainly not because his writing was inferior (Bate). In fact, the broad background and comprehensive coverage within Pope’s work made it it one of the most influential critical essays yet to be written (Bate). It appears that through his writing Pope was reaching out not to the average reader, but instead to those who intend to be writers themselves as he represents himself as a critical perfectionist insisting on particular styles. Overall, his essay appears to best be understood by breaking it into three parts.

The scholar Walter Jackson Bate has explained the structure of the essay in the following way:

I. General qualities needed by the critic (1-200):

1. Awareness of his own limitations (46-67). 2. Knowledge of Nature in its general forms (68-87).

Nature defined (70-79).
Need of both wit and judgment to conceive it (80-87).

3. Imitation of the Ancients, and the use of rules (88-200).

Value of ancient poetry and criticism as models (88-103).
Censure of slavish imitation and codified rules (104-117).
Need to study the general aims and qualities of the Ancients (118-140).
Exceptions to the rules (141-168).

II. Particular laws for the critic (201-559): Digression on the need for humility (201-232):

1. Consider the work as a total unit (233-252). 2. Seek the author’s aim (253-266). 3. Examples of false critics who mistake the part for the whole (267-383).

The pedant who forgets the end and judges by rules (267-288).
The critic who judges by imagery and metaphor alone (289-304).
The rhetorician who judges by the pomp and colour of the diction (305-336).
Critics who judge by versification only (337-343).

Pope’s digression to exemplify “representative meter” (344-383). 4. Need for tolerance and for aloofness from extremes of fashion and personal mood (384-559).The fashionable critic: the cults, as ends in themselves, of the foreign (398-405), the new (406-423), and the esoteric (424-451).

Personal subjectivity and its pitfalls (452-559).

III. The ideal character of the critic (560-744):

1. Qualities needed: integrity (562-565), modesty (566-571), tact (572-577), courage (578-583). 2. Their opposites (584-630). 3. Concluding eulogy of ancient critics as models (643-744).

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“[It is] difficult to know which part to prefer, when all is equally beautiful and noble.” Weekly Miscellany comments on the poetry of Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope spent his childhood in Windsor forest and, from an early age, gained a keen appreciation for nature. Later in his life he lived in a property by the River Thames in London where he cultivated his own garden that he opened for visitors. In today’s poem, written in 1709, we can see this love of the natural world through his shaping of elements of the landscape into an extended metaphor for knowledge. This landscape is vast and mountainous: the Alps , Europe’s largest mountain range are a prominent feature, as are hills, vales , an endless sky and eternal snows . Compared to this vast landscape, people are almost insignificant. Their role in the poem is to act as explorers who set off on a journey of discovery, trying to conquer the highest mountains by ascending to the summit; we tempt the heights of Arts… the towering Alps we try… Finally, despite being almost exhausted by his efforts, the explorer realises that his journey has barely begun; the mountain vista stretches ahead, unbroken, into the distance:

A poem’s central idea, often developed into an extended metaphor, is known as a conceit . Unlocking the first couplet should provide you the key to Pope’s conceit in An Essay on Criticism . Pope begins with a warning that:

The Pierian Spring is an important place in Greek Mythology , the source of a river of knowledge that was associated with the nine ancient Muses, themselves a metaphor for artistic inspiration. In this poem, it’s part of the landscape that functions as an extended metaphor for learning. It might seem strange that Pope begins by giving his readers a warning to taste not the waters of this river. However, it’s important to realise that Pope isn’t saying not to drink from the well of knowledge at all. He tells us to drink deep , emphasising his instruction with both alliterative D and using the imperative tense (where the verb is placed at the beginning of the line or phrase). To Pope’s mind, learning is seductive and intoxicating . Once you set out on the journey of learning, or take even a tiny sip from the wellspring of knowledge, you won’t be able to resist the temptation to learn more. Therefore, he suggests that you either prepare to immerse yourself completely in the Pierian Spring , or don’t drink at all.

Once you’ve discovered the connotations of Pierian Spring , the rest of the poem can be read as a warning (or criticism ) of anyone who is rash enough not to follow Pope’s instruction. Should you venture unprepared into the unknown, you must be clear about your limitations. As a spring is the starting point of a river, so too is it the starting point of Pope’s extended metaphor . From here, the reader sets out on a journey into an imposing mountainous landscape that, while initially appearing it can be ‘climbed’ or conquered, actually keeps expanding into an endless vista. No matter how far the explorer climbs, the top of the mountain never gets any nearer. Heights, lengthening way, increasing prospect and, most telling of all, eternal snows conjure the visual image of the landscape metaphysically stretching out in front of our weary eyes. Individual people are tiny and easily lost in this ever-shifting world. Pope creates a contrast between the boundless landscape and the bounded limits of human perception. At the last, the human explorer is tired by his efforts to conquer these mountains of knowledge – but the poem ends by revealing that he’d barely even gotten started on his journey: Hills peep o’er hills; Alps upon Alps arise .

Before we get too much further into the discussion of Pope’s ‘essay’, it might be helpful to place these lines in context. Despite the way they seem to be a complete poem in themselves, they are actually part of a much longer poem which stretches to three parts and a total of 744 lines! The eighteen-line extract you’ve read constitutes the second verse of Part 2 and it may help you to know that, in the first verse, Pope singled out pride as the characteristic that would eventually lead to the downfall of his explorer. Here are four lines from earlier in the Essay:

In this short sample, you can see the names Pope calls people who rush off on foolhardy adventures without taking the time to properly prepare: blind man , weak head and fools ! Younger readers might not enjoy this interpretation, but Pope finds the overconfidence of young people most problematic, associating youth with a kind of recklessness that, in hindsight, is misplaced.

You may argue that qualities such as fearless and passionate (fired) seem like compliments; but I detect a note of criticism in Pope’s words; he suggests that young people confuse emotion with clear thinking and they are too eager to plunge into the unknown. There’s an emphasis on speed and rashness ( pleased at first; at first sight ) that cannot last, like a novice marathon runner who goes sprinting out of the blocks while older, more wily competitors know to save themselves for the challenges ahead. While the young explorer does encounter some early success (implied by words like mount , more advanced , attained and, more significantly by an image : tread the sky ), the race is longer than the runner thought and inevitably the pace must sag. Later in the poem, positive diction disappears and words like trembling , growing labours , and tired take over as the true scale of the challenge becomes apparent. Sharp-eyed readers will already have noticed that the image of ‘treading the sky’ was in fact a simile : seem to tread the sky. Subtly, Pope’s use of a simile implies that any success the explorer thought he’d achieved wasn’t actually real.

The implication that over-enthusiasm can cloud good judgment can be traced through diction to do with looking and seeing: a t first sight, short views, see, behold, appear, survey, eyes and peep pepper the poem and convey the poet’s belief that, to our detriment, we can be short-sighted and tunnel-visioned. The eighth line of the poem is entirely concerned with this idea: short views we take, nor see the lengths behind paints a picture of a young explorer who only looks in one direction – eyes fixed straight ahead – and so misses the bigger picture.

While the poem is certainly didactic (it’s trying to impart a lesson), Pope’s tone of voice is not too condescending or stand-offish because he includes himself in his criticism as well. Throughout the poem the words us, we and our soften his accusations so there’s never a ‘them-and-us’ divide between young and old. In fact, Pope was only 21 years old when he finished his Essay on Criticism , so use your mind’s ear to imagine him speaking ruefully from experience, rather than as a nagging or pestering adult complaining about ‘young people today.’ The line Fired at first sight by what the Muse imparts is revealing in this regard. Alluding to the nine Muses of Greek mythology , this line personifies poetic inspiration, so in one sense the extended metaphor of trying to conquer an unknowable landscape represents his own experiences of writing poetry. ‘Meta-poems’ (poems about the writing of poems) actually have a name: ars poetica . Pope implies that rushing off on a path of artistic endeavour without realising the true extent of the commitment that entails is a mistake that he himself has made in his own attempts at writing.

If you’re a student reading this who thinks you might be able to use Pope’s poem as an excuse not to do your homework or give up on your own writing: you shouldn’t be too rash. Pope’s not suggesting we should quit. Instead, he’s warning us that what might seem like a shallow pool is in fact a deep river of knowledge. Once you jump in, the current will sweep you away and there’s no going back. The poem is a criticism of unpreparedness and arrogance rather than an acknowledgement of futility. In fact, an element of form suggests that, for all the faults Pope has pointed out in young people who are too confident in their limited abilities, it is much more praiseworthy to try and fail to conquer the heights than never to try at all. The poem is written in iambic pentameter that is constant and regular as if, no matter how tough the going gets, the young explorer doesn’t give up. Compare these two lines, with iambic accents marked, from the beginning and end of the poem to see how the rhythm is unfailing:

More, the poem is arranged in rhyming couplets (the rhyme scheme is AA, BB, CC and so on). Rhyming couplets written in iambic pentameter are traditionally known by a more dramatic name: heroic couplets . Pope was widely considered to be the master of writing poetry in heroic couplets ; using them here implies that Pope ultimately believes any young person who’s brave – or foolhardy – enough to embark upon the lifelong journey of learning is worthy of praise.

The structure of Pope’s poetical essay matches the message he’s trying to convey – that, once you start learning, you won’t be able to stop. Look carefully at the punctuation marks, in particular his use of full stops . You’ll find the first one at the end of the fourth line, the second after the tenth and the third at the end of the poem (after eighteen lines). In other words, if the poem was arranged in verses, the first verse would be nice and short at only four lines, the second would stretch to six, but the final verse would have doubled in length to eight lines. Expanding sentences represent the conceit – a little learning is a dangerous thing – and match the images of the landscape expanding ( eternal snows , increasing prospect, lengthening way ) as you read further down the poem.

The end of the poem brings Pope’s criticism to its conclusion. We see the young explorer break through the eternal snows , climb above the clouds, and stand triumphantly on the mountain top, proudly surveying his achievements. Only now does he take a moment to look more deliberately at the mountains he’s trying to conquer:

Be alert to two words that might seem insignificant: appear and seem , words that signal the mistake the explorer made; he thought that he had already past the bulk of his journey. Read carefully to punctuation as well, and you’ll see the colon – a longer pause, which creates a caseura – representing the traveler pausing at the moment of his triumph… and it’s here that realisation finally dawns. Despite the difficulty of his climb thus far, the landscape ( increasing prospect ) stretches out endlessly in front of him: Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise . Here, repetition mixes with all that increasing and lengthening diction to create a surreal image of an ever-expanding landscape stretching out ahead. You might also notice P sounds peppering the last two lines of the poem in the words p ee p , Al p s, Al p s, and p ros p ect . Coming from a category of alliteration called plosive , this sound is excellent at conveying a release of negative emotion, as it is formed by pushing air through closed lips. The sound helps us perceive the taste of victory turning to defeat as the weary traveler’s shoulders slump at the prospect of the endless climb still to come.

What does Pope offer as a solution? He already warned us at the start of the poem: drinking largely sobers us again . Suddenly, the importance of the word sober becomes clear. While the idea of heading off on this journey of discovery was intoxicating , firing up those with passion to learn, discover and explore – the reality is very different. That young, over-confident learner/explorer is gone, replaced by a wiser, but more world-weary traveler who can finally see the true scale of the task ahead. By now it’s too late, he’s stuck on the mountain top and there’s only one thing he can do – go onwards!

So drink deep and be prepared to encounter much more than you expected when you set out on your journey.

Suggested poems for comparison:

from Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

An Essay on Criticism was not the only poetical essay written by Pope. French writer Voltaire so admired Pope’s Essay on Man that he arranged for its translation into French and from there it spread around Europe.

Marrysong by Dennis Scott

As in Pope’s poem, Scott creates a metaphor of the landscape to represent his marriage. He is an explorer in a strange land – each time the explorer glances up from his map, the landscape has changed and he’s lost again.

Through the Dark Sod – As Education by Emily Dickinson

Victorians brought many different associations to all kinds of plants and flowers. In this Emily Dickinson poem, the lily represents beauty, purity and rebirth. This link will also take you to a fantastic blog which aims to read and provide comment on all of Emily Dickinson’s poems. So that’s 1 down, and nearly 2000 more to go…

In the Mountains by Wang Wei

Often spoken of with the same reverence as Li Bai and Du Fu, Wang Wei is a famous imagist poet in China. In these exquisite portrait poems, Wang Wei paints pictures of the impressive landscapes of his mountain home.

Additional Resources

If you are teaching or studying An Essay on Criticism at school or college, or if you simply enjoyed this analysis of the poem and would like to discover more, you might like to purchase our bespoke study bundle for this poem. It costs only £2 and includes:

Study Questions with guidance on how to answer in full paragraphs;
A sample analytical paragraph for essay writing;
An interactive and editable powerpoint, giving line-by-line analysis of all the poetic and technical features of the poem;
An in-depth worksheet with a focus on analysing diction and explaining lexical fields ;
A fun crossword quiz, perfect for a starter activity, revision or a recap;
A four-page activity booklet that can be printed and folded into a handout – ideal for self study or revision;
4 practice Essay Questions – and one complete model Essay Plan.

And… discuss!

Did you enjoy this analysis of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism ? Do you agree that the poem somewhat singles out young people? Can you relate to Pope’s messages about the temptations of learning? Why not share your ideas, ask a question, or leave a comment for others to read below. For nuggets of analysis and all-new illustrations, find and follow Poetry Prof on Instagram.

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The Rape of the Lock

Alexander pope.

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An Essay on Criticism

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Essay on Criticism for Students and Children

500+ Words Essay on Criticism

It is tough for anyone to criticism well. For some, criticism is a good thing while others disagree. Criticism in itself is one of those words that looks like negative. Thus, it gives a feeling of unwilling to accept or making a massive disagreement or being pessimistic. But to everyone’s surprise, it is not the case. Criticism is often different than what people perceive. The essay on criticism gives you an insight into the pros and cons of the criticism.

Criticism is expressing the disagreement for something or someone that is generally based on perceived faults, beliefs, and mistakes. So, the main point here is whether to consider criticism as good or bad. Also, if we go by the meaning of the word criticism then criticizing someone is bad. Also, simultaneously this might lead to improving the person who is being criticized. So, he/she is becoming a better person and does not repeat the mistakes is considered as providing criticism to be good. Thus, this depends entirely on the perceived value that is hidden behind the criticism.

A Good Part of the Criticism

Scope for improvements .

Constructive criticism will lead to locating the fault or mistakes that are made by the people. So, the people can work upon it and thereby improve their activities so a heedful and better life can be lived. Criticism calls for improvement on one plane and thereby avoiding the issues unwanted on the other side.

Expert and Credible Status

When the criticism is constructive it always makes the criticizer a central figure among the people. Thus, more honors and credibility is given and so criticism would rather be considered as expert advice. Thus, it will add to the status quo of the person that is criticizing.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

The Bad Side of Criticism

Leads to a feeling of demotivation.

A person that is being constantly criticized may feel at tines demotivated. So, this is because of the fact that his/her efforts have not been justifiably and rightfully appreciated. Thus, it may further lead to increase in hesitation in moving forward.

The Danger of Creating a Destructive and False Image

There are many times that it can occur that the people that criticize are seen as the villain of the society. Thus his/her image gets automatically shattered as well as abruptly changed. So, doing criticism may lead adversely to the criticizer as well.

So, we can understand that if the criticism is done in a constructive and positive way that this may lead to a good and fair outcome. Also, if it is done destructively than it may lead to adverse effects on both society as well as personal level.

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Essay on Literature

Criticism Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Literature , Criticism , Bible , Emotions , World , Thinking , Writing , Life

Published: 02/24/2021

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"Despite the usual connotations of the word “criticism,” literary criticism is called criticism not because it is negative or corrective but rather because those who write criticism ask searching, analytical, "critical" questions about the works they read. Literary criticism is both the process of interpreting and commenting on literature and the result of that process."

This passage from the textbook gave me a new way to think about the word “criticism.” I always thought of criticism as a way to talk about what is wrong with something, but the textbook says it is not limited to negative remarks. It is a process of understanding and discussing something. This interpretation of the word criticism makes a lot of sense, because I have seen advertisements for movies that say things like, “The critics give the movie five stars!” These critics really liked the movie, showing another time criticism has a good connotation. It seems that the important thing to remember about literary criticism is that it is not about what is good or bad about a piece of literature. Literary criticism exists to help people understand and discuss literature. I will think about literary criticism differently now that I know it is about “interpreting and commenting” instead of being “negative or corrective.” "Finally, literature awakens us to the richness and complexity of language-our primary tool for engaging with, understanding, and shaping world around us. As we read more and more, seeing how different writers use language to help us feel their joy, pain, love, rage, or laughter, we begin to recognize the vast range of possibilities for self-expression. Writing and discussion in turn give us invaluable practice in discovering, expressing, and defending our own nuanced, often contradictory thoughts about both literature and life."

This passage talks about using literature and language to learn about and practice self-expression. Reading is valuable because it helps us see things in new ways that we have never imagined before. Even though reading often teaches us new things, it also helps us relate to other people or to understand ourselves. If I read a story about someone living halfway across the world from me, I may realize that even though this person has such a different life, the feelings she writes about are the same as my own. I can pay attention to how she described her feelings to learn how to express my own feelings. A piece of literature discussed in a classroom helps students to learn new techniques for their own writing. From other readers of the same piece, I can learn even more about reading and writing than I could on my own. Reading literature is a lot like listening, because the more you listen or read, the more you learn. However, to become a better writer, you have to both listen and write. Only through practicing writing can people become good at using the things they have learned while reading and become better writers.

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essay on criticism line by line explanation

An Essay on Criticism Summary & Analysis by Alexander Pope

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
Poetic Devices
Vocabulary & References
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
Line-by-Line Explanations

Read the full text of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

The Full Text of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

1 A little learning is a dangerous thing;

2 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

3 There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

4 And drinking largely sobers us again.

5 Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

6 In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,

7 While from the bounded level of our mind,

8 Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,

9 But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise

10 New, distant scenes of endless science rise!

11 So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try,

12 Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;

13 The eternal snows appear already past,

14 And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

15 But those attained, we tremble to survey

16 The growing labours of the lengthened way,

17 The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,

18 Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Summary

“from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” themes.

Shallow Learning vs. Deep Understanding

See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fired 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 advanced, behold with strange surprise New, distant scenes of endless science rise!

Lines 11-14

So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; The eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

Lines 15-18

But those attained, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthened way, The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Symbols

The Mountains/Alps

See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Extended Metaphor

“from an essay on criticism: a little learning is a dangerous thing” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

A little learning
Pierian spring
Bounded level
Short views
The lengthened way
See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

The Poem Aloud — Listen to an audiobook of Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (the "A little learning" passage starts at 12:57).

The Poet's Life — Read a biography of Alexander Pope at the Poetry Foundation.

"Alexander Pope: Rediscovering a Genius" — Watch a BBC documentary on Alexander Pope.

More on Pope's Life — A summary of Pope's life and work at Poets.org.

Pope at the British Library — More resources and articles on the poet.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Alexander Pope

Ode on Solitude

Everything you need for every book you read.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism

Analysis of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 8, 2020 • ( 1 )

Literary Criticism of Alexander Pope

( EC, 68–73)

In a fallen universe, however, apprehension of Nature requires assistance: internal gifts alone do not suffice.

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.

( EC, 80–03)

Nonetheless, some external prop to Wit was necessary, and Pope finds this in those ‘RULES’ of criticism derived from Nature:

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.

( EC, 88–91)

( EC, 152–7)

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;

( EC, 233–6)

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, That gives us back the Image of our Mind:

( EC, 296–300)

These gaffes are contrasted with more positive kinds of imitative effect:

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 shou’d like the Torrent roar.

( EC, 366–9)

Again, this functions both as poetic instance and as critical test, working examples for both classes of writer.

( EC , 560–3, 566–7, 574–5)

Careless of Censure , nor too fond of Fame, Still pleas’d to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to Flatter , or Offend, Not free from Faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

( EC , 741–44)

from An Essay on Criticism

Join Alexander Pope on a metaphysical journey of discovery… that will last a lifetime.

“[It is] difficult to know which part to prefer, when all is equally beautiful and noble.” Weekly Miscellany comments on the poetry of Alexander Pope

So drink deep and be prepared to encounter much more than you expected when you set out on your journey.

Suggested poems for comparison:

from Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

Marrysong by Dennis Scott

Through the Dark Sod – As Education by Emily Dickinson

In the Mountains by Wang Wei

Additional Resources

Study Questions with guidance on how to answer in full paragraphs;
A sample analytical paragraph for essay writing;
An interactive and editable powerpoint, giving line-by-line analysis of all the poetic and technical features of the poem;
An in-depth worksheet with a focus on analysing diction and explaining lexical fields ;
A fun crossword quiz, perfect for a starter activity, revision or a recap;
A four-page activity booklet that can be printed and folded into a handout – ideal for self study or revision;
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From An Essay on Criticism – Poem Analysis

Read the poem analysis of the poem From An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope, where the speaker of the poem takes an impersonal tone as he communicates universal truths about the art to a general audience. The purpose of the extract above is to act as guidance for individuals to learn about how to educate themselves better and improve their creative practices, as well as discourage them from being overly egotistical or too ambitious in youth.

READ THE EXTRACT OF THE POEM HERE

STORY/SUMMARY

It’s dangerous only to learn a little bit – you should drink deep from the fountain of knowledge, the Pierian Spring, or otherwise, your education will be worth nothing at all. Small drinks of it leave the brain drunk and confused, but when we drink deeply, we start to think clearly again. When we first see the Muse of creativity, the inspiration she provides fires us up when we are young and fearless, causing us to try and aim for the very height of the Arts in our work (to try and create the most ambitious and difficult pieces of art). When our minds are constrained like this, we can only see a short distance ahead of us, and we can’t understand the depth that lies behind the production of great art – but, when we’re older and more advanced, we notice with strange surprise that further off, distant scenes of endless knowledge rise up before us! We try and climb a mountain at first, like the towering Alps, and feel like we’re already almost touching the sky – the eternal snows on the mountain tops are already passed, and the first clouds we reach or mountains we climb seem like the last we’ll ever have to struggle to reach – but after we get to the top of the first difficult mountain, we tremble at the scene that arises before us – we notice that it’s going to be a lot more hard work again from this point on to continue the creative journey. This realisation tires our eyes, as we see so many more mountains behind the first one that we climbed, hills peeping over hills.

LANGUAGE DEVICES

Alliteration – ‘A little learning’ / ‘drink deep’ – Pope uses alliteration to accentuate the famous lines: ‘ A little learning is a dangerous thing;/ Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring’. These stand out because they carry a very important message – don’t only educate yourself a little bit, or half-heartedly, because unless you spend your life learning deeply and continually growing, you will not be able to fully use the knowledge that you’ve acquired. This is an invocation to readers to learn not only one small area of knowledge but to develop a broad education that covers many different areas and fields – as well as delving deep into history, classics and ancient philosophy to learn about the past.

Extended metaphor – landscape in the poem is used symbolically throughout; Pope likens the creative process to a journey or difficult pilgrimage, such as hiking up and down the mountains of the ‘Alps’. ‘Short views’ that are visible at the beginning of the journey demonstrate the limited insight that a young creative person may have at first when they approach their art. Once they scale a few ‘mountains’ (i.e. overcome some difficulties and attempt some ambitious projects), they will be ‘more advanced’ and rewarded with ‘new distance scenes’ that provide fresh and deeper inspiration.

Collective pronoun – ‘we’ – the use of this collective pronoun makes it feel as though Pope aligns himself and his own poetry with that of all other writers and creative people, across the world and through time – the effect is to make us feel less isolated and alone with our creative practises, and also to encourage every individual to think of himself or herself as a creative person.

FORM/ STRUCTURE

Heroic couplets – Pope was famous for writing in heroic couplets, which are lines of iambic pentameter (five feet of unstressed- stressed syllables) that end in rhyming couplets. This metre is often used for epic or narrative poetry, as it creates an inspirational or idealistic mood; it was popularised in English by Chaucer and used commonly throughout the 17th and18th centuries. Baroque poets such as Pope and Dryden also used this form to translate classical works into English, such as the epic poems of Virgil and Homer.

Horatian satire – Satirical writing was very popular in Pope’s time (the 18th century) as its main aim is to use humour to expose the flaws in strictly ruled societies . the Roman writer Horace developed a specific form of satire which is characterised by a witty, amused tone that seeks to expose the follies of humans through ridicule. Pope’s ‘An Essay on Criticism’ is inherently satirical, and draws on the tradition of Horatian satire, because it is essentially a criticism of critics themselves, who judge writers too harshly and selfishly by their own low standards, instead of genuinely appreciating artistic merit. In the extract above, Pope also satirises the stereotype of the too-eager young artist, who thinks he or she has achieved greatness at a young age, instead of striving throughout their life to always improve and reach new heights with their work.

Exclamatory sentence – ‘ New distant scenes of endless science rise!’ – Pope uses the word ‘science’ in its original sense here, to mean all ‘knowledge’, not just the discipline of science. The exclamation creates an emphatic and energetic tone to the line, showing that if the artist can overcome his or her own arrogance, many new pathways and creative inspirations will become accessible.

Shift in tone – ‘ The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, ’ – Pope acknowledges that once we realise how far there is left to go, we are likely to feel tired and exhausted by the infinite potential of our own creativity – though the tone becomes less confident here, it is also intended to be reassuring because it encourages all readers to understand that creativity is something which ebbs and flows, rather than remaining constant.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was a famous poet and translator, known for his satirical works which humorously poked fun at the strict society of his time. When he was young, he contracted tuberculosis, which affected his health for the rest of his life and also caused him to have stunted growth – in adulthood, he was said to be only 4’6’’ tall. His family home was in Windsor Forest, and he spent his childhood there in nature, reading and providing himself with a classical education (he was unable to attend university, due to his family being Catholic). He moved to his own villa in Twickenham in 1719, where he spent his time redesigning the grounds and gardens – building an underground grotto, which turned into a camera obscura when the door was shut – projecting images of nature onto the internal walls.

Pope wrote ‘An Essay on Criticism’ when he was only 23 years old – the poem above is an extract from this long poem. The main purpose of the poem is to express issues with literary and artistic criticism. Critics are people who review and assess the quality and merits of artistic works – often, they gain a reputation for being brutal and also selfish or egotistical – a critic, for instance, has the power to make or break a writer’s career. The genius of Pope’s poem lies in the fact that he uses the form of poetry to turn himself into a critic – one whose job it is to criticise the unfairness of critics themselves! This creates a satirical tone which humorously ridicules the seriousness of critics, whilst making a very valid point about art and taste. Simultaneously, the poem educates readers on what good critics are capable of doing – namely creating a sense of true taste in culture, illuminating the beauty and complexity of artworks and enabling the general public to find deeper meaning and pleasure in the art they experience. It also makes valuable comments on the works of artists and writers themselves, suggesting what good poets should do to make their poetry more powerful and meaningful – his advice in the poem includes the idea that artists should acknowledge their own flaws and limitations, as well as always staying humble and continuing to learn throughout their lives.

Creativity

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An Essay on Criticism

[su_row] [su_column size=”2/5″] Overview

This is a one stanza extract from the mammoth 49 stanza Essay on Criticism (you can read the rest here ), which as a whole sets out to tell literary critics what they should and should not do.

Our extract is the second stanza of the second of three parts of the poem. In it, Pope advises against rash judgement from critics and that they should persevere with poets even if they make mistakes or break the rules from time to time. He argues that without critics being open to new approaches and ideas they will stifle the rise of great poets of their age.

However, if you look at this stanza alone, this message could be generalised beyond poetry and literature. This could be seen as a defence of innovation and progress in the world.

Mini-Glossary Pierian – this refers to a spring in the Pierian mountains in Macedonia which the Ancient Greeks believed was the source of scientific and literary knowledge; Muse – Ancient Greeks’ goddesses of literature, science and the arts; Alps – a mountain range in Western Europe.

[/su_column] [su_column size=”3/5″]

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fired 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 advanced, behold with strange surprise New distant scenes of endless science rise! So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; The eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last; But those attained, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthened way; The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) [/su_column] [/su_row]

[su_box title=”Analysis” box_color=”#b31609″ title_color=”#010113″ radius=”9″]Click through the tabs below to explore my analysis of different aspects of the poem.[/su_box]

[su_tabs vertical=”yes”] [su_tab title=”Context”]

Pope is one of those rare poets who was actually very successful thanks to his writing. This could be down to the fact that as a Catholic at the time he was unable to hold public office; he had a hunchback so wasn’t very attractive to the other sex; and he had health problems that stunted his growth meaning he only ever reached 4″6. So with all that he had bugger all else to do, except become a kick ass poet.

He came from a middle class family and was educated only up until he was 12, but dragged himself up as an intellectual by binging on the classics of the Greek and Roman world as well as the big names of the time. From his early twenties his own work was being well received critically with his poetry and translations selling well.

This poem was completed in 1709 when Pope was 21 and published two years later. As this represents the beginning of his poetic career, the focus on telling critics to go a bit easy may have been based on his own personal hopes. It certainly acts as a challenge to the old, established order and their rules by suggesting that they may have a negative impact on poetry.

[su_tab title=”Themes”] Themes

This turns the idea that wisdom is associated with age on its head. He suggests that age can bring a degree of cynicism and rigidity in thinking, which can prevent the bright lights of innovation and change from emerging and challenging our ideas of beauty or brilliance.

[/su_tab] [su_tab title=”Content”]

The stanza opens with a analogy comparing literary critics to thirsty hikers. Their knowledge of what good water taste like leads them to discount the water of the Pierian spring after a little sip, which leaves them in a drunken rage at how it doesn’t taste quite right. However, Pope encourages them to drink deeper to appreciate to expand their horizons and embrace brilliant innovation.

In the fifth line we move onto focusing on young poets. They are presented as being richer with inspiration as they are fresh and unburdened by a deep understanding of the rules so that they don’t fear making mistakes. Without this fear they try to achieve the heights, which implies those governed by rules are also limited by them. The critics on the other hand are bound by the rules and thus constricted from recognising innovative brilliance and achievement.

From the eleventh line we examine the state of the critic. Having come to understand and recognise the majesty of Classical poetry, represented by the first mountain of the Alps, they become content and complacent. They forget that their are many mountains to conquer and in our focus on appreciating the brilliance of the past, we fail to focus on the challenges and opportunities ahead for new achievement and majesty.

[su_tab title=”Language and techniques”]

Language and techniques

This poem is one of the most quoted and it’s not hard to see why.

We begin with a belter. ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing’ is contrary to popular wisdom and suggests that knowledge in itself does not directly represent wisdom or understanding. As this is addressed to highly respected and learned individuals who become critics it is telling that their knowledge is represented as ‘little’. This immediately diminishes their education as it does not represent a significant chunk of what there is to be learned and thus they are not fully equipped to be absolute in terms of criticism and adherence to poetic rules.

‘Dangerous’ is also highly provocative here. I think it would be fair to say that critics can generally (quite rightly) be labelled as snobs, but to in what way are they dangerous? The implication here is that they are going to act as a stifling agent against the ‘fearless youth’ of innovative young poets.

Pope is a big one for Classical allusion and his comment about the critics taking ‘shallow draughts’ from ‘the Pierian spring’ suggests that they are making judgement based on only a tiny perception of the full knowledge of the arts. These sips ‘intoxicate’ as they give the illusion of understanding poetry, but in reality they only represent a small part of the whole. As the spring is classically the font of all knowledge the imperative ‘drink deep’ forcefully instructs them to broaden or ‘sober[s]’ their minds to allow for new techniques and approaches.

Contrast this censure of the critics with the romantic notion of the young poet. They are ‘fired at first sight’, which suggests they are inflamed with passion and the intensity of ‘fearless youth’ that is not yet stymied by knowledge of rules and failure to surpass or equal the greatness of others. This is a common idea now, that the young lack the knowledge to fear failure and thus are more likely to ‘tempt the heights’ than those who are older and have either seen their efforts fail or who have learned to respect the work of others too much.

Again contrary to common sense, the knowledge, rules and respect the critics have learned leaves them ‘bounded’ and imprisoned against change and innovation. The rules dictate that they can only have ‘short views’ and not appreciate the ‘new distant… rise’ of new ideas. The ‘endless science’ Pope refers to not only links to changes within poetry, but reflects the ideas of the European Enlightenment that took off at the beginning of the 18th century – where science made leaps and bounds, pushing our understanding forward dramatically.

Pope encourages critics to avoid the temptation to become self-satisfied with their Classical knowledge and poetic comprehension. He uses the image of a climber ‘so pleased at the first towering Alps’ that they ‘seem the last’ to mirror the critics sense of having reached the pinnacle of poetic understanding, while failing to recognise that the poetic discipline, much like a mountain range, has many peaks.

He suggests critics fixate on this achievement and rap it up in rules that become impediments to those who have to follow. Pope uses the phrase ‘tremble to survey’ to imply that they treat their knowledge and achievement as if it were divine and untouchable, they are afraid to look at things another way. Instead they wrap the art form in ‘growing labours’ that represent rules and requirements that are put in front of every poet and are presented as if they should never be deviated from.

It is as if critics cannot deal with increasing their knowledge or poetic appreciation as the thought ‘tires [their] wandering eyes’. However, Pope reminds them that ‘Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise’ suggesting that their are many different peaks and ways to achieving brilliance, not just those confined by Classical rules. He starts with ‘hills’ here as he is warning critics that, although a poet may begin with something not so majestic as the Classical greats, they may gradually improve and develop to achieve new heights. However, we should not crush them with our rules before they have a chance to ‘tempt the heights’.

[su_tab title=”Structure”]

A few things to comment on here.

The poem is written in heroic couplets, which just means that each line is written in iambic pentameter. The effect of this is to present the subject matter in a serious and steady tone, while adhering to the Classical ‘laws’ of poetry in order to gain the attention of the critics it addresses before basically telling them that he and other poets shouldn’t necessarily have to do this.

I’ve mentioned it above generally, but make sure you point out that the whole poem uses climbing mountains as analogy for creating powerful poetry. The association lifts poetry to being something of such magnitude and towering importance, but also serves to demonstrate that there are many different peaks and many different ways of reaching them.

Even the initial drinking from the spring can be interpreted directly as relating to mountaineering. Upon reaching new heights our minds are affected by the altitude and can sometimes symptoms can resemble being drunk. However, drinking deeply is a way of trying to tackle this sickness.

Pope also use alliteration quite frequently in the poem, particularly at the beginning of the stanza. Notice the hard ‘d’ sound that repeats in the opening four lines and represents the stubborn and immoveable attitude that Pope is addressing. Contrast this with the ‘f’ sounds in the fifth and sixth lines, which gives a ferocity and fire to the youthful poets trying to pioneer their route to greatness.

You could also mention the double repetition in the final line, which acts as a way of implying the endlessness of opportunity and poetic development.

[su_tab title=”Tone”] Tone

Although this is somewhat critical of the critics, the tone is not one of brash anger or fire, but rather it is reasoned and serious. It is an argument that sets out why they should broaden their horizons rather than an instruction to bugger off. The peaks of emotion in the poem are when describe the potential of those new to the game, whose passion will hopefully inspire new heights of poetry.

1 thought on “An Essay on Criticism”

Thank you ! Hugely helpful !

essay on criticism analysis line by line

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An Essay on Criticism Summary & Analysis by Alexander Pope

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Shallow Learning vs. Deep Understanding

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

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Lines 15-18

“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Symbols

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“From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Extended Metaphor

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “From An Essay on Criticism: A little learning is a dangerous thing”

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An Essay on Criticism Summary & Analysis by Alexander Pope

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