Alexander Pope's Achievements as a critic

It can now be concluded that Pope shows little originality as a critic. He only collects the rules of the ancient writers and expresses them in his own characteristic manner. But still his criticism has a value of its own and it did help in formulating the taste of his times. Defending Pope against the charge of lack of originality Austin Warren says: "The humanist conception of culture which Pope most decidedly held, is that it constitutes a continuum: each generation does not begin all over again; it carries on the thoughts and art of the past generations. Atkins also thinks that the criticism of Pope, though not very original, is important. He says: "It may be argued that the work (The Essay on Criticism) lacks originality, that it is little more than a collection of trite commonplaces, the virtue of which has long since vanished. Yet the value of its teaching on the art of criticism can easily be underrated for among it many precepts are not a few of lasting validity. The work is, in short, a mosaic not without its precious stones, and is the schools. Much of its contents was doubtless new to Pope's own generation: and to modern readers it remains of more than historical interest, for it comes as a reminder of some important truths not included in neo-classical teaching."

Making some general remarks on Pope as a critic and praising the perfect finish of his heroic couplets Saintsbury says: "When we pass from generals to particulars Pope's cleverness at least appears more than ever. The sharply separated, neatly flying, and neatly ringing couplets deliver 'one, two' in the most fascinating cut-and-thrust style, not without a brilliant parry now and then to presumed (and never very formidable) objections. The man's perfect skill in the execution of his own special style of poetry raises and in this case not delusively, the expectation that he will know his theory as well as his practice. The 'good sense', the 'reason,' are really and not merely nominally present. A great deal of what is said is quite undoubtedly true and very useful, not merely for reproof and correction in point of critical and poetical sin, but actually for instruction in critical and poetical righteousness."

Smith and Parks in The Great Critics have pointed out that in his later works Pope tries to go beyond the neo-classical doctrine. "Pope's codification, though it contains little original matter, is enormously important because of its definiteness. Dryden's criticism had licensed outlets for the romantic temperament: Pope fixed an inescapable limit to it, and one which, though battered, was not effectively done away during the remainder of his century. Yet Pope himself, in his later work, did not hesitate to go beyond his doctrine....." They have quoted the following extracts from his Preface to Shakespeare to prove their point: "If ever any author deserved the name of an original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of Nature.... His characters are so much Nature herself, that it is a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as Copies of her." Where the ordinarily admired rules are insufficient, Pope abandons them: "To judge therefore of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rules is like trying a man by the laws of one Country, who acted under those of another......I will conclude by saying of Shakespeare, that with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparison with those that are more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majestic piece of Gothic Architecture, compared with a neat Modern building: The latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed, that in one of these are materials enoügh to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments, though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence......