Alexander Pope was born in London and from the age of twelve he was
moved by the ambition to write a great heroic poem. He was influenced by the
great poets preceded him. He wrote two long poems: the Essay on Criticism and
the Essay in Man and they attracted a great deal of attention and made him
famous throughout Europe.
2. The poem :
Nature to all things fix'd the Limits fit,
And wisely curb'd proud Man's pretending Wit:
As on the Land while here the Ocean gains,
In other Parts it leaves wide sandy Plains;
Thus in the Soul while Memory prevails,
The solid Pow'r of Understanding fails;
Where Beams of warm Imagination play,
The Memory's soft Figures melt away.
One Science only will one Genius fit;
So vast is Art, so narrow Human Wit;
Not only bounded to peculiar Arts,
But oft in those, confin'd to single Parts.
Like Kings we lose the Conquests gain'd before,
By vain Ambition still to make them more:
Each might his sev'ral Province well command,
Wou'd all but stoop to what they understand.
Introduction :
An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English
writer Alexander Pope (1688-1744). However, despite the title, the poem is not
as much an original analysis as it is a compilation of Pope's various literary
opinions. It is a poem in which Pope attempts to lay down
in verse the rules of 'good' art and 'good' criticism.
A) vocabulary :
- fix'd : defined
- limits : boundaries
- fit : suitable
Alexander Pope
- wisely : with wisdom
- curb'd : limited, controlled
- pretending wit : pretending to have intelligence and know more
- gains : wins, takes grounds
- plains : areas of flat, open land
- thus : so
- soul : mind, spirit of a person
- prevails : wins, is stronger
- genius : intelligence
- fit : suit
- vast : great, large
- bounded : limited
- peculiar : special
- oft : often
- conquests : victories
- province : kingdom, area of specialization
- command : govern
- stoop : remain with
B) paraphrase :
Nature to all things fix'd the Limits fit,
And wisely curb'd proud Man's pretending Wit:
As on the Land while here the Ocean gains,
In other Parts it leaves wide sandy Plains;
- fix'd : defined
- limits : boundaries
- fit : suitable
- wisely : with wisdom
- curb'd : limited, controlled
- pretending wit : pretending to have intelligence and know more
- gains : wins, takes grounds
- plains : areas of flat, open land
Pope declares that Nature has defined the correct limits of everything
without needing the intelligence of man to help her. Nature designed the ocean
so that it eats into the sand in some places and leaves wide sandy beaches in
others.
(C) figures of speech :
| Alliteration: Personification | : Nature to all things fix'd the Limits fit, : As on the Land while here the Ocean gains, |
Thus in the Soul while Memory prevails,
The solid Pow'r of Understanding fails;
Where Beams of warm Imagination play,
The Memory's soft Figures melt away.
As for man: he cannot understand events and feelings while his memory of
them is still strong. But, on the other hand, when time passes and his
imagination begins to interfere with his memories, the reality of those memories
slips away.
(C) figures of speech :
| metaphor: | : Where Beams of warm Imagination play, The Memory's soft Figures melt away. |
So vast is Art, so narrow Human Wit;
Not only bounded to peculiar Arts,
But oft in those, confin'd to single Parts.
- genius : intelligence
- fit : suit
- vast : great, large
- bounded : limited
- peculiar : particular
- confined : limited
Art and knowledge are vast and man's intelligence is limited. Most people
can do well in only one thing. Sometimes, indeed, they excel in only one part of
one thing.
Like Kings we lose the Conquests gain'd before,
By vain Ambition still to make them more:
Each might his sev'ral Province well command,
Wou'd all but stoop to what they understand.
- conquests : victories
- province : kingdom, area of specialization
- command : govern
- stoop : remain with
Man should be content to do the things he does well. Often, however, like
kings fighting wars to extend their territory and so losing their own country, we
lose what we have by trying to make it more. If each person were to stick to that
which he knows best he would be able to master it completely.
(D) Commentary:
1. The whole poem is written in heroic couplets; the form which Pope
worked in most and which he polished and brought to perfection. The
heroic couplet consists of two rhyming lines of verse. It is usually in
iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme of this extract is
A A, B B, C C, D D, A A, E E, F F, G G.
A heroic couplet usually carries complete sense within itself even though it
connects to the rest of the poem; it expresses a complete idea. This is one
reason why many of Pope's couplets have become known as 'epigrams', i.e.
]sayings rather like proverbs in that they are a concise and clever expression
of a general truth, e.g.:
Like kings we lose the conquests gained before,
By vain ambition still to make them more.
2. The opening lines of the passage embody Pope's belief in the essential
Tightness and wisdom of Nature. In another poem, he proclaims that:
3. He continues through several line to develop and re-express one idea; the
central idea in the passage: each man would do well to stick to what he
knows.
4. Pope uses visual images such as the image of the ocean eating into the
land on the one hand and leaving wide sandy beaches on the other; or
that of the king trying to conquer new lands. But he makes no startlingly
original use of poetic figures. There is a metaphor in lines 7 and 8 where
he speaks of the 'imagination' as a 'sun' with 'warm beams' and of the
'memories' as wax figures 'melting' away.
5. Finally, much of Pope's art depends on the relationships he creates
between individual words. Thus, for example, his repetition of the rhyme
A A in the first and fifth couplets. Indeed, he does not only repeat the
same rhyme, but the identical words. However, he repeats them with
variation: 'wit' means the same thing in both couplets, but he alters 'fit'
so that in the first it is an adjective, while in the fifth it is a verb.
6. Win the many lines there are examples of sound patterning as in the
repetition of the T sound things fixed and limits fit the alliteration in
fixed and fit, and again in 'proud man's pretending wit' and the
assonance across lines as in wisely, white in lines 2,3 and 4.
7. Assonance تجانسis the repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words
as in, "some ship in distress that cannot ever live." The i's in those
words have the same vowel sounds but they do not have to rhyme.
Another example is "Do you like blue". Here the "oo" sound is repeated
within the sentence. This example rhymes.
8. An extract from a poem cannot be appreciated as much as the whole
work. But it shows, at least, the particular character and skills of the
poet.
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