Line+Notes+for+An+Essay+on+Criticism

from [|the Gutenburg eBook] for "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope
 * LINE NOTES**

[Line 17: **Wit** is used in the poem in a great variety of meanings (1) Here it seems to mean genius or fancy, (2) in line 36 a man of fancy, (3) in line 53 the understanding or powers of the mind, (4) in line 81 it means judgment.]

[Line 26: **Schools**—Different systems of doctrine or philosophy as taught by particular teachers.]

[Line 34: **Maevius**—An insignificant poet of the Augustan age, ridiculed by Virgil in his third Eclogue and by Horace in his tenth Epode.]

[Lines 80, 81: There is here a slight inaccuracy or inconsistency, since "wit" has a different meaning in the two lines: in 80, it means fancy, in 81, judgment.]

[Line 86: **The winged courser**.—Pegasus, a winged horse which sprang from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut off her head. As soon as born he left the earth and flew up to heaven, or, according to Ovid, took up his abode on Mount Helicon, and was always associated with the Muses.]

[Line 94: **Parnassus**.—A mountain of Phocis, which received its name from Parnassus, the son of Neptune, and was sacred to the Muses, Apollo and Bacchus.]

[Line 97: **Equal steps**.—Steps equal to the undertaking.]

[Line 129: **The Mantuan Muse**—Virgil called Maro in the next line (his full name being, Virgilius Publius Maro) born near Mantua, 70 B.C.]

[Lines 130-136: It is said that Virgil first intended to write a poem on the Alban and Roman affairs which he found beyond his powers, and then he imitated Homer:

Cum canerem reges et proelia Cynthius aurem Vellit—Virg. Ecl. VI]

[Line 138: **The Stagirite**—Aristotle, born at the Greek town of Stageira on the Strymonic Gulf (Gulf of Contessa, in Turkey) 384 B.C., whose treatises on Rhetoric and the Art of Poetry were the earliest development of a Philosophy of Criticism and still continue to be studied.

The poet contradicts himself with regard to the principle he is here laying down in lines 271-272 where he laughs at Dennis for

Concluding all were desperate sots and fools Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.]

[Line 180: **Homer nods**—Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus, 'even the good Homer nods'—Horace, Epistola ad Pisones, 359.]

[Lines 183, 184: **Secure from flames**.—The poet probably alludes to such fires as those in which the Alexandrine and Palatine Libraries were destroyed. **From envy's fiercer rage**.—Probably he alludes to the writings of such men as Maevius (see note to line 34) and Zoilus, a sophist and grammarian of Amphipolis, who distinguished himself by his criticism on Isocrates, Plato, and Homer, receiving the nickname of Homeromastic (chastiser of Homer). **Destructive war**—Probably an allusion to the irruption of the barbarians into the south of Europe. **And all-involving age**; that is, time. This is usually explained as an allusion to 'the long reign of ignorance and superstition in the cloisters,' but it is surely far-fetched, and more than the language will bear.]

[Lines 193, 194:

'Round the whole world this dreaded name shall sound, And reach to worlds that must not yet be found,"—COWLEY.]

[Line 216: **The Pierian spring**—A fountain in Pieria, a district round Mount Olympus and the native country of the Muses.]

[Line 248: **And even thine, O Rome**.—The dome of St Peter's Church, designed by Michael Angelo.]

[Line 267: **La Mancha's Knight**.—Don Quixote, a fictitious Spanish knight, the hero of a book written (1605) by Cervantes, a Spanish writer.]

[Line 270: **Dennis**, the son of a saddler in London, born 1657, was a mediocre writer, and rather better critic of the time, with whom Pope came a good deal into collision. Addison's tragedy of Cato, for which Pope had written a prologue, had been attacked by Dennis. Pope, to defend Addison, wrote an imaginary report, pretending to be written by a notorious quack mad-doctor of the day, entitled The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Frenz of F. D. Dennis replied to it by his Character of Mr. Pope. Ultimately Pope gave him a place in his Dunciad, and wrote a prologue for his benefit.]

[Line 308: **On content**.—On trust, a common use of the word in Pope's time.]

[Lines 311, 312: **Prismatic glass**.—A glass prism by which light is refracted, and the component rays, which are of different colors being refracted at different angles show what is called a spectrum or series of colored bars, in the order violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.]

[Line 328: **Fungoso**—One of the characters in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humor who assumed the dress and tried to pass himself off for another.]

[Line 356: **Alexandrine**—A line of twelve syllables, so called from a French poem on the Life of Alexander the Great, written in that meter. The poet gives a remarkable example in the next line.]

[Line 361: Sir John Denham, a poet of the time of Charles I. (1615-1668). His verse is characterized by considerable smoothness and ingenuity of rhythm, with here and there a passage of some force—Edmund Waller (1606-1687) is celebrated as one of the refiners of English poetry. His rank among English poets, however, is very subordinate.]

[Line 366: **Zephyr**.—Zephyrus, the west wind personified by the poets and made the most mild and gentle of the sylvan deities.]

[Lines 366-373: In this passage the poet obviously intended to make "the sound seem an echo to the sense". The success of the attempt has not been very complete except in the second two lines, expressing the dash and roar of the waves, and in the last two, expressing the skimming, continuous motion of Camilla. What he refers to is the onomatopoeia of Homer and Virgil in the passages alluded to. **Ajax**, the son of Telamon, was, next to Achilles, the bravest of all the Greeks in the Trojan war. When the Greeks were challenged by Hector he was chosen their champion and it was in their encounter that he seized a huge stone and hurled it at Hector.

Thus rendered by Pope himself:

"Then Ajax seized the fragment of a rock  Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high,   With force tempestuous let the ruin fly   The huge stone thundering through his buckler broke."


 * Camilla**, queen of the Volsci, was brought up in the woods, and, according to Virgil, was swifter than the winds. She led an army to assist Turnus against Aeneas.

"Dura pan, cursuque pedum praevertere ventos.   Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret    Gramina nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas;    Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti,    Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret aequore plantas." Aen. vii 807-811.

Thus rendered by Dryden.

"Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain,  Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain;   She swept the seas, and as she skimmed along,   Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung"]

[Lines 374-381: This passage refers to Dryden's ode, Alexander's Feast, or The Power of Music. Timotheus, mentioned in it, was a musician of Boeotia, a favorite of Alexander's, not the great musician Timotheus, who died before Alexander was born, unless, indeed, Dryden have confused the two.]

[Line 376: **The son of Libyan Jove**.—A title arrogated to himself by Alexander.]

[Line 393: **Dullness** here 'seems to be incorrectly used. Ignorance is apt to magnify, but dullness reposes in stolid indifference.']

[Line 441: **Sentences**—Passages from the Fathers of the Church who were regarded as decisive authorities on all disputed points of doctrine.]

[Line 444: **Scotists**—The disciples of Duns Scotus, one of the most famous and influential of the scholastics of the fourteenth century, who was opposed to Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), another famous scholastic, regarding the doctrines of grace and the freedom of the will, but especially the immaculate conception of the Virgin. The followers of the latter were called Thomists, between whom and the Scotists bitter controversies were carried on.]

[Line 445: **Duck Lane**.—A place near Smithfield where old books were sold. The cobwebs were kindred to the works of these controversialists, because their arguments were intricate and obscure. Scotus is said to have demolished two hundred objections to the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and established it by a cloud of proofs.]

[Line 459: **Parsons**.—This is an allusion to Jeremy Collier, the author of A Short View etc, of the English Stage. **Critics, beaux**.—This to the Duke of Buckingham, the author of The Rehearsal.]

[Line 463: **Blackmore**, Sir Richard (1652-1729), one of the court physicians and the writer of a great deal of worthless poetry. He attacked the dramatists of the time generally and Dryden individually, and is the Quack Maurus of Dryden's prologue to The Secular Masque. **Millbourn**, Rev. Luke, who criticised Dryden; which criticism, although sneered at by Pope, is allowed to have been judicious and decisive.]

[Line 465: **Zoilus**. See note on line 183.]

[Line 479: **Patriarch wits**—Perhaps an allusion to the great age to which the antediluvian patriarchs of the Bible lived.]

[Line 536: **An easy monarch**.—Charles II.]

[Line 541: At that time ladies went to the theater in masks.]

[Line 544: **A foreign reign**.—The reign of the foreigner, William III.]

[Line 545: **Socinus**.—The reaction from the fanaticism of the Puritans, who held extreme notions of free grace and satisfaction, by resolving all Christianity into morality, led the way to the introduction of Socinianism, the most prominent feature of which is the denial of the existence of the Trinity.]

[Line 552: **Wit's Titans**.—The Titans, in Greek mythology, were the children of Uranus (heaven) and Gaea (earth), and of gigantic size. They engaged in a conflict with Zeus, the king of heaven, which lasted ten years. They were completely defeated, and hurled down into a dungeon below Tartarus. Very often they are confounded with the Giants, as has apparently been done here by Pope. These were a later progeny of the same parents, and in revenge for what had been done to the Titans, conspired to dethrone Zeus. In order to scale heaven, they piled Mount Ossa upon Pelion, and would have succeeded in their attempt if Zeus had not called in the assistance of his son Hercules.]

[Line 585: **Appius**.—He refers to Dennis (see note to verse 270) who had published a tragedy called Appius and Virginia. He retaliated for these remarks by coarse personalities upon Pope, in his criticism of this poem.]

[Line 617: **Durfey's Tales**.—Thomas D'Urfey, the author (in the reign of Charles II.) of a sequel in five acts of The Rehearsal, a series of sonnets entitled Pills to Purge Melancholy, the Tales here alluded to, etc. He was a very inferior poet, although Addison pleaded for him.]

[Line 619: **Garth, Dr**., afterwards Sir Samuel (born 1660) an eminent physician and a poet of considerable reputation He is best known as the author of The Dispensary, a poetical satire on the apothecaries and physicians who opposed the project of giving medicine gratuitously to the sick poor. The poet alludes to a slander current at the time with regard to the authorship of the poem.]

[Line 623: **St Paul's Churchyard**, before the fire of London, was the headquarters of the booksellers.]

[Lines 645, 646: See note on line 138.]

[Line 648: **The Maeonian star**.—Homer, supposed by some to have been born in Maeonia, a part of Lydia in Asia Minor, and whose poems were the chief subject of Aristotle's criticism.]

[Line 652: **Who conquered nature**—He wrote, besides his other works, treatises on Astronomy, Mechanics, Physics, and Natural History.]

[Line 665: **Dionysius**, born at Halicarnassus about 50 B.C., was a learned critic, historian, and rhetorician at Rome in the Augustan age.]

[Line 667: **Petronius**.—A Roman voluptuary at the court of Nero whose ambition was to shine as a court exquisite. He is generally supposed to be the author of certain fragments of a comic romance called Petronii Arbitri Satyricon.]

[Line 669: **Quintilian**, born in Spain 40 A.D. was a celebrated teacher of rhetoric and oratory at Rome. His greatwork is De Institutione Oratorica, a complete system of rhetoric, which is here referred to.]

[Line 675: **Longinus**, a Platonic philosopher and famous rhetorician, born either in Syria or at Athens about 213 A.D., was probably the best critic of antiquity. From his immense knowledge, he was called "a living library" and "walking museum," hence the poet speaks of him as inspired by all the Nine—Muses that is. These were Clio, the muse of History, Euterpe, of Music, Thaleia, of Pastoral and Comic Poetry and Festivals, Melpomene, of Tragedy, Terpsichore, of Dancing, Erato, of Lyric and Amorous Poetry, Polyhymnia, of Rhetoric and Singing, Urania, of Astronomy, Calliope, of Eloquence and Heroic Poetry.]

[Line 686: **Rome**.—For this pronunciation (to rhyme with doom) he has Shakespeare's example as precedent.]

[Line 692: **Goths**.—A powerful nation of the Germanic race, which, originally from the Baltic, first settled near the Black Sea, and then overran and took an important part in the subversion of the Roman empire. They were distinguished as Ostro Goths (Eastern Goths) on the shores of the Black Sea, the Visi Goths (Western Goths) on the Danube, and the Moeso Goths, in Moesia ]

[Line 693: **Erasmus**.—A Dutchman (1467-1536), and at one time a Roman Catholic priest, who acted as tutor to Alexander Stuart, a natural son of James IV. of Scotland as professor of Greek for a short time at Oxford, and was the most learned man of his time. His best known work is his Colloquia, which contains satirical onslaughts on monks, cloister life, festivals, pilgrimages etc.]

[Line 696: **Vandals**.—A race of European barbarians, who first appear historically about the second century, south of the Baltic. They overran in succession Gaul, Spain, and Italy. In 455 they took and plundered Rome, and the way they mutilated and destroyed the works of art has become a proverb, hence the monks are compared to them in their ignorance of art and science.]

[Line 697: **Leo**.—Leo X., or the Great (1513-1521), was a scholar himself, and gave much encouragement to learning and art.]

[Line 704: **Raphael** (1483-1520), an Italian, is almost universally regarded as the greatest of painters. He received much encouragement from Leo. Vida—A poet patronised by Leo. He was the son of poor parents at Cremona (see line 707), which therefore the poet says, would be next in fame to Mantua, the birthplace of Virgil as it was next to it in place.

"Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremona."—Virg.]

[Line 714: **Boileau**.—An illustrious French poet (1636-1711), who wrote a poem on the Art of Poetry, which is copiously imitated by Pope in this poem.]

[Lines 723, 724: Refers to the Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Poetry which had been eulogized also by Dryden and Dr. Garth.]

[Line 725: **Roscommon**, the Earl of, a poet, who has the honor to be the first critic who praised Milton's Paradise Lost, died 1684.]

[Line 729: **Walsh**.—An indifferent writer, to whom Pope owed a good deal, died 1710.]