Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Cropper here with some Alexander Pope. This is titled, Essay on Man and Other Poems, and we are going to start with his essay on criticism, just because it's early in the book, and it was the first one in which I found anything that really jumped out at me. I'm not going to read the entirety of this, and it's not an essay, it's a poem. I don't know why I call them essays. It's a poem on criticism, and we'll just do that in this video, and we'll do the essay on criticism in the next one once I finish it. I still have a few pages to go on it. One of the longest poems I've ever seen. This I got for a dollar at Strand in Manhattan, and the cover on the back, the price on the back cover says one dollar, so it's held its value rather well. You probably know about Dover Thrift Editions and how cheap they are, and well-bound and good paper and stuff, so I don't mean cheap in that way, I mean not costly. So his essay on criticism. "'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill appear in writing or in judging ill." Which one shows the greater lack of skill? Your writing or judging ill of other people's writing? That's the opening line of the essay. Authors, we skip a little ways down. Authors are partial to their wit, "'tis true, but are not critics to their judgment, too?" That's a good one, huh? We skip a ways. "'Some have at first for wits, then poets past.'" Now, a wit means someone who's intelligent or funny or clever or something. "'So some people have first passed for wits, and then for poets, and turn critics next, and proved plain fools at last.'" Now, I ruined the rhyme, so to get the sugar of it, let's do it one more time. "'Some have at first for wits, then poets past, turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.'" He's referring to somebody that he had quite a tessel with, and I don't know that much about Alexander Pope, but he made criticisms of people. He published letters that, well, he wrote letters to people, then he asked them to send his copy back to him, and then he published the letter and made it look as if he had sent it to some other very much more prominent person, so he webbed a weave of deception in that. But, and he goes on and on about people he has had fights with or whatever, so that this essay on criticism has a lot of oblique references to all of his problems. Now we skip a ways further. "'One science only will one genius fit. So vast is art, so narrow human wit.'" So even a genius can only really get to know one science. "'Not only bounded to peculiar arts, but oft in those confined to single parts.'" So a genius only gets to know one science really well, or one art really well. And even within that, they don't even know the whole of their science or art, they only know single parts of it. Now he wrote this. He died in 1744. He wrote this going back in the 1700s. That's much more true today. If you know genetics, for example, you don't know the whole of genetics, you only know your little teeny part, or engineering, or teaching, or whatever it is. Now I have a line that is so funny, or brilliant, or silly, or brilliant, or funny, that I'm not even going to do the couplet. This is all in A, B, A, B, A, B, or not A, B, A, B. It's like A, B, C, D, E, F, or something. A, A, no, I don't know what it is. Yeah, it's A, A, B, B, C, C, D, D, E. That's what it is. So there's always two lines that go together. I'm just going to read the one line. I'm not even going to spoil it by reading the other one. It's all fine if you read the whole poem, but this is self-contained. "'Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid.'" Now, to woo a girl means to get her, you know, to get laid with her or something. So the guy who tried on the mistress of the house, the lady of the house, the owner of the house's wife, you know, tried to woo her and couldn't, turns to the maid. And that's a reference to one of his, one of the tassels or fights he was having. We skip a ways down. "'Music resembles poetry. In each are nameless graces, which no methods teach, and which a master hand alone can reach.'" Now, Christopher Hitchens said something like this, and, oh man, who's the other one? Leonard Peacock said, if you can't do poetry, you just leave that alone. Not everyone can. It's like dancing. It's like dancing really well or something. It's not everyone's forte, and you can't say that everybody can learn to dance, because some people can't. Now, "'Make use of every friend and every foe. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pyrean spring. Their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.'" So the Pyrean spring is a reference to Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses in ancient Greece. The Muses were the, I think they showed up in the plays, but they were the, it represents learning, to drink of the Pyrean spring. Now, this references people who read one book or one poem or one essay, and it lights their brain on fire. "'A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pyrean spring.' A little bit of learning, just reading one book or essay, and it lights your brain up, is dangerous. He says, "'Shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.'" So, you learn about, read some Ludwig von Mises, or something like that, or you read Rothbart, and you learn, "'Oh, war's bad, war's bad. Oh, it's evil corporations. Oh, anarchy would work better.'" And then if you learn the history of the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War, and the fight against the Church, and the Reformation, and you learn about the great battles of Ancient Greece, you come to figure out that this is, you know, Rothbart and these modern ninnies are just a little piece of the tale, and you can't solve all of humanity's problems just by reading a couple of anti-war books, for example. And I have, not with war, but with reading Ayn Rand's book, For the New Intellectual, I had sort of this epiphany, a massive wave of epiphany strike me when I was 15 or so, when I read that. And I thought it had clarified massive swaths of reality, and it did, but little did I know there was a lot more learning that could, and should, and would be done in the future. So, uh, a little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply, or taste not the Pyrenean Spring. I don't agree with the part where he says, or taste not. I would just say, drink deeply. And, you know, in Vino Veritas, or in Natural Light Veritas, we skip a little ways. In every work, regard the writer's end, since none can compass more than they intend. So now he's referencing someone who's criticized him. He says, don't just criticize me, think of what I was trying to accomplish, I can't do it all. And if the means be just, the means towards the end, if the means be just, the conduct true, applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. Yeah, he's right. You can name trivial faults in Atlas Shrugged, even. But applause is in order. And he's saying it certainly out of motivation for protecting his own ego, somehow. There we have it. Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays, for not to know some trifles is a praise. We don't really need the first of those two lines. Not to know some trifles is a praise. Now, some people, you ask them this or that little question, they say, I don't know, I've never heard of that. On the one hand, you can say, oh, you're unlearned or ignorant. But, some people are, some people who don't know this or that little trifle, you should commend them for not knowing, or at least ways not judge them, right? Like, if you don't know what a massive multiplier game is, or something like that, massive online multiplier game, I can't remember what it's called. If you don't know what that is, some people will snicker at you, and they'll be like, where have you been locked in a closet? But other people will say, you know, you're better off not to know. Or if you don't know the latest plot from the latest sitcom, or the latest characters on the latest reality TV show, some people will be like, wow, you're behind, buddy. But you should praise a person for not knowing some trifles. Okay, skip a little ways. Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace the naked nature and the living grace, with golden jewels cover every part, and hide with ornament their want of art. Interesting point. Dress it up in fancy language and hocus pocus and bells and whistles. And Nietzsche said this a little differently a hundred years later. Yeah, right about a hundred years later, he said, they muddy their waters in order that they would appear deep. Come across a little pond, it's just an inch or two deep, and it's real muddy. You can't tell how deep it is. Only if the water is very clear can you see the depth. So keep your writing clear, and people will be able to see how deep it is. And keep your painting or your, whatever, your poem, unadorned with massive, quote, jewels and gold and ornament, and people will be able to see the real value. True wit is nature to advantage dressed. There we go, there's a good line. Comes right after those others. What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. You can leave that off, but I just wanted to finish the rhyme. True wit is nature to advantage dressed. So take nature and dress it up as is appropriate to what it is, instead of putting all gaudy things on it, which actually just hide it. Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. Ah, if you find a whole bunch of words, then you're not likely to find much meaning. And it's sorted if you say, well Atlas Shrugged is extremely long. Sure, but take any single paragraph out of Atlas Shrugged, and say what is the meaning of this paragraph, and see if you can find extra words in it. Or take a page or two of Voltaire, and see what you can cut. Not much. And that's what he's referring to there. Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found, when words like leaves most abound. We skipped quite a ways down. Some never advance a judgment of their own, but catch the spreading notion of the town. It's an off rhyme, but we'll let it go. They reason and conclude by precedent, and own stale nonsense, which they never invent. Ah, there's people who don't judge on their own. They just take what they're given. We skip a ways. This is a single line. I'll read the two lines, but it's only the second one. Be thou the first true merit to be friend. His praise is lost, who stays till all commend. So that's a good line. His praise is lost, who stays till all commend. You're not going to get everyone to be happy with what you do or say. You're not going to get everyone to commend you. So, if you wait until everyone commends you, then no one will commend you at all. Your praise will be lost, who waits till all commend. We skipped quite a ways down. Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknowed proposed as things forgot. Now, that's true, unless the person is quite highly motivated. But if you have to help them with their motivation or bring motivation to them, that's very true. As a person who's taught before and will teach again, you do need to teach them as if you're telling a story. And you need to keep the next bit of the story hidden. Keep them on the edge of their chairs. Keep them in suspense. And things unknown proposed as things forgot. So every once in a while, you say, and blah blah blah blah blah. It's like this is hitting you. This is all a great exploratory adventure for you. And it's great for them to follow along and listen when you're in that way. But if you just drone on and you don't just give them the sentences and stuff, then it doesn't work. So, if you ever try to teach someone, teach as if you taught not, and things unknown should be proposed as things forgot. Aha, I remember this other point. Skip just a little ways down. Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, and charitably let the dole be vain. Your silence there is better than your spite, for who can rail so long as they can write? So you're saying you should restrain your criticism because in many cases, they will wear you out. They will keep on producing trash much longer than you can stay around and criticize them. Who can rail so long as they can write? We skip a few pages down. With tyranny, then, superstition joined, as that the body, this enslaved the mind, joined mind. Much was believed, but little understood, and to be dole was construed to be good. A second deluge, learning thus overrun, and the monks finished what the Goths begun. Now, that says the Goths destroyed Rome, and then the monks destroyed everything that was left after Rome fell. So think of this. We'll do it one more time now. Rome has fallen. The Goths have finished it. They've destroyed it. Now the monks take over. The church rules the area now. With tyranny, then, superstition joined. Aha, so tyranny and superstition come together when the monks take over, and the Goths have destroyed Rome. With tyranny, then, superstition joined, as that the body, this enslaved the mind. So tyranny enslaves the body. Superstition enslaves the mind. That's a thought right out of the For the New Intellectual essay in Ayn Rand's book by that name. She talks about Attila, the Hun, and the witchdoctor. And I don't know if she read Alexander Pope, but I wouldn't even be a bit surprised if she did. And maybe even this line was somewhere in the back of her mind somewhere. So back to after Rome fell, the monks take over. Much was believed, but little understood. They believed all kinds of stuff, but understood virtually nothing. And to be dull was construed to be good. Like, if you watch my On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, if you watch those videos, he says, Christianity has much of the negative in it. And they just say, don't do this, don't do that, don't the other. Lock yourself in a room and pray all the time. You don't have to learn, you don't have to understand the world. A good person abstains from the world. So to be dull was construed to be good. A second deluge learning thus overrun. And the monks finished what the Goths begun. There is some more to the poem, not much, but we're going to end it on that thought from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. There you are, ladies and gentlemen, on an essay on criticism, which is not an essay, it's a poem by Alexander Pope. If you enjoy my videos and you learn something from them, I appreciate that you contribute something to my Lyceum. I upload one minute of video for each dollar, and two minutes of video for each dollar, if you contribute a hundred dollars or more.