Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was one of the steering forces of the neo-classical age. He was born to a
catholic family in the year 1688. Being a catholic at that time was filled with risks. Along with
that, Pope also acquired a tubercular bone disease owing to which he had a deformed body. He
hence never developed any long lasting friendships. He was self-educated and the young Pope
produced high quality of poetry.

He was a leading satirist and in most of his poems, he mocked, among other things, his
contemporaries, the religious system (both Protestants and catholic), the abuses of learning,
etc. Due to his political leanings and controversial views, he lost support from the Whigs (one of
the two leading political houses in the era of King William) and instead gained support from the
Torys (the other leading political house).

He tried to imitate Horace, the leading lyric poet of the Augustan era and also translated
Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. Other of his famous works include An Essay on Man, An Essay on
Criticism and The Dunciad. An epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, is one of the four defenses of his life
and inspired by the Horatian satire and directed to his contemporaries. The collection of the
four apologies or defenses is commonly termed as the Moral Essays.

Since Pope’s death at the age of 58 due to his affliction, his literary merit has been questioned
by a lot of critics. However some of his contemporaries like Samuel Johnson and Joseph
Warton, also Pope’s mentor, acknowledge him as one of the leading satirists, wits and
translators of his age.

Pope, in his lifetime, lost his grace from the literary community when the Romantics started
dominating the literary scene. However he regained popularity when the New Criticism
movement in the early twentieth century came about.

An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

This is a heroic couplet of 420 lines addressed to his dear friend and colleague Dr. Arbuthnot on
the occasion of his death. Dr. Arbuthnot was a physician and a writer who died a few days
before the poem was published. The poem is written in first person and addresses the doctor
directly. One can see a lot of inter textuality (references to other works of literature) in the
verses.

It begins with an Advertisement which is a self-declaration where he apologizes for what he is

about to do and say in the next 420 lines. The poem opens with Pope warning the doctor about
the crowd of bad poets and writers (his contemporaries) coming to catch him in his retreat in
Twickenham. Pope’s voice is playful and ironic. He is obviously criticizing other writers of his
age. He says that his critics cannot stand competition and hence showers unfavorable
comments on him. Also he seems to have a grudge against Joseph Addison. Pope and Addison
were both big literary forces at the time of Enlightenment but they did not always agree with
each other. Since Pope was a roman catholic, his associations with the Torys was more than his
association with the Whigs. However, he did find some friends and well-wishers within the
Whigs; most prominently William Congreve and Nicholas Rowe. However, his ties with other
Whigs, most notably Joseph Addison grew bad to worse with time when Addison tried to rival
his version of the Iliad with his translation (with the help of Thomas Tickell). Pope was a poet
and essayist whereas Addison mainly wrote essays and some plays. Pope even wrote a
character named Atticus to mock Addison’s personality and opinions.

Furthermore, he calls Codrus, Sporus and Bufo (seemingly his contemporaries) bad writers.
Pope refers to a ‘plague’ in the poem. That plague is presumably is a reference to bad art and
poetry being produced in that era. Also he says that poetry is just one aspect of the human
civilization. It is important but more lies at stake that just good poetry. He warns against
propagation of bad ideas and thoughts in society, saying that it can corrupt mankind forever if
not monitored.

Pope says that bad art is caused by bad thinking which in turn is a result of bad ideas and bad
ideas stem from bad living. This is due to the distortion of human values in society. He in turn is
criticizing the reign of William and his ideas. It is a ‘sick’ world which a doctor like Arbuthnot can
cure. Hence the dedication. Hence Arbuthnot is hailed as the doctor who cures and Pope
becomes the secretary. Though Pope has such negative notions of humanity and the society in
general, he still believes that goodness is possible and there still exists some good people in the
society.
In his poem, there is a reference to Dunciad. Written in 1728, the Dunciad is a mock epic in
which Pope, for the first time presented opposition to his attackers and defended his works by
aligning it with the standards set by civilized society. He attacked Lewis Theobald, the scholar
who had mocked Pope by portraying him as the favorite son of the Goddess of Dullness.

In his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope combines the defense of his own work along with the
reiteration of the satirist’s traditional apology. He majorly directs his attacks to the Whigs who
he considers vastly money minded, always out for commercial gain despite the repercussions in
society morals and the influencers who have questionable morals. They are, according to Pope,
the driving forces for the corruption in society and the morals of that time.

An Essay on Criticism
This poem was written when Pope was only 21 years old and after this was published in 1711,
he acclaimed instant fame. An Essay on Criticism is a 744 lines poem that is written in heroic
couplets. It deals with the job of critics and focuses on how critics should and shouldn’t behave,
on the critics of his time and how the ancient Greeks taught the world the art of critiquing. This
is the most important critical essay in verse modelled on Horace’s Art of Poetry.

The Essay on Criticism can be divided into three parts. The first is where the general qualities
required to be a critic are discussed. He opens the couplet by saying that bad criticism does
more harm than bad writing:

‘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.

Pope says that just as in the case of poets, finding true genius is rare, similarly within critics too,
true taste is hard to find. He goes on to say that just as poets are partial to their wits and works,
the critics are partial to their judgement too. This fault of the critic needs to be rectified. Critics
determine how we as an audience look at a work of art and hence, shape society and what the
society considers good art. In the light of this realization, the work and judgement of the critic
becomes very important. Hence, a critic with false learning and a big ego is very bad and
detrimental for the society in general, more than a bad poet is harmful for the civilization. Pope
goes on to make fun of the critics of his generation by saying that most critics are nothing but
fools who have to prove a point to society:

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets past,

Turn’d Criticks next, and prov’d plain fools at last;

He advises those who bear the critics’ noble name and yearn for fame with that name to know
their depth and not go beyond it. A critics needs to be aware of his limitation and try to expand
his knowledge by reading about the rules set by the ancient Greeks. Furthermore, if the critic is
beyond his depth he should refrain from commenting or passing judgement on that work of art.
A critic should respect his own opinion, should be honest and not fall prey to envy. He advices
going back to the laws of critiquing as given by the Greeks who understood the art by observing
the laws of Nature. The rules of literary criticism, according to Pope, can be found in the works
that have stood the tests of time; namely those of the ‘happy few’ which include ancients like
Quintilian, Longinus and Horace. Although the critics must study the ancients, they should not
blindly follow the rules set down by them and should not be influenced by the popularity of the
author.

The second part of the poem deals with certain laws critics should adhere to, the most notable
being the rule to look at a work as a whole and not as fragmented units:

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;

The next essential thing that the critic needs to keep in mind while judging a work of poetry is
that he needs to keep the author’s point of view in mind:

In every work, regard the writer’s end,

Since none can compass more than they intend;

He goes on to say that the critic must overlook certain trivial faults of the poet when the ‘means
be just and the conduct true.’ A critic should not judge by metaphors and superiority of diction
alone; and neither should he judge by rules alone. He needs to look at the work as a whole unit.

The third and the last part deals with the ideal characteristics of a critic. He should be modest,
honest, should know his own limitations and should be courageous. A critic should be silent
when he doubts his sense and speak only when sure of himself. He ends the poem by
emphasizing the virtues of the ancient Greeks and Romans. He advices going back to the
ancient teachings to understand the art of literary critiquing:

Such once were Criticks, such the Happy Few,

Athens and Rome in better Ages knew.