Notes on Elements of Essays

 Alexander Pope and his victims

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

- As a poet he ‘threw himself into the controversies of the day and into lively commentary upon the social and literary scene in such a way that the fruits of a critical mind are scattered over his output’.

An Essay on Criticism (written at the age of 23)

- This is a poem in the tradition of Horace’s Ars Poetica. Scattered here and there in the text are paraphrases of lines from Virgil, Cicero and Quintilian.

- The book is not systematic in its approach or analysis. ‘The sheer polish of Pope’s couplets is such that the whole has an air of authoritative guidance from a master who is vastly superior to his subject and provides commonsense.’

The qualifications of the true critic:

- Pope believes that only poets are fit to be critics. He criticizes failed writers who turn to critic.

- He must know his own limitations, and he must ‘follow nature’.

- A thorough knowledge of the Ancients is a pre-condition for criticism.

- There must not be any slavish (like a slave) imitation of the ancient rules and models. In poetry there are ‘nameless graces which no methods teach’.

Various impediments to true critical judgment:

- pride,

- inadequate knowledge and

- piecemeal judgment instead of a survey of the whole

Rules for the good critic:

- He must be frank and truthful,

- Hold his piece when he is not sure of himself

- Speak diffidently (less confidently) even when he is confident

- Must not be niggardly (mean, ungenerous) with his advice

1. Preface to the Translations of the Iliad:

- The book is a lucid and persuasive analysis. To read it is to ‘realize how closely clarity of thought and clarity of style are related’.

- For Pope, Homer is pre-eminent because he excels in the most fundamental respect—‘invention’. Invention is the source of all the materials on which art operates. ‘It is the sheer abundance and power of Homer’s creativity which stokes up the fire and rapture (intense joy) energizing his work’. Pope praises the fecundity (fertility) and comprehensiveness of Homer’s genius, ‘the variety and vitality of his characterization, the grandeur of his sentiments, the rich imagery, the vividness of his style, and the flexibility of his versification’.

2. Comparing Homer with Virgil, Pope makes his assessment thus:

- Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In the one we most admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity (passion). Virgil leads us with attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion (in large number); Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence.

3. Preface to the Works of Shakespeare

- Shakespeare was more original than Homer: In this preface Pope does justice to some of the beauties in Shakespeare. He asserts that Shakespeare was more original than Homer.

- More inspiration than imitation in Shakespeare’s works. The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration indeed: he is not so much as imitator as an instrument of nature,

- Shakespeare is able to maintains characters’ individuality, variety and vitality. Shakespeare not only gives ‘variety and vitality to his characters, but he preserves each individuality throughout each play’

- Able to produce situations of joy and tears. ‘Without any strain or evident effort Shakespeare produces the situation where the ‘heart swells and tears burst out just at the proper places’.

- ‘The penetration and felicity (intense happiness) displayed by him is perfectly amazing from a man of no education or experience of public life’.

- Worked with intuition. ‘He seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through human nature at one glance’.

- intuition (the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning)

- Pope’s prejudice against Shakespeare: His tragedies ridicule and amuse, and his comedies are rude but humorous. Then Pope goes into some of the prejudices against Shakespeare. Shakespeare had to write for a living and please the box-office. The audience composed of meaner sort of people. Shakespeare had to appeal to them. Hence there is bombast in the tragedies and buffoonery (ridiculous but amusing) and ribaldry (rude but humorous way) in the comedies.

- Taking up the charge that Shakespeare lacked learning, Pope points to evidence of considerable reading.

- Comparatively Shakespeare’s dramas are like Gothic architecture with its own charm and beauty. Comparing Shakespearean drama with ‘more finished’ plays is like ‘an ancient majestic piece of Gothic architecture compared with a neat modern building. We have greater reverence for the former fabric, even though ‘many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur’.

 Lewis Theobald (1688-1744)

- Theobald attacks Pope’s defects on arbitrary reading, omission and altering or misunderstanding of Shakespeare’s works.  The animosity between Pope and Theobald started with the latter’s edition of Shakespeare. In this edition, Theobald brought out the defects in Pope’s edition. Pope had determined his text by an arbitrary reading of the folios and quartos. Some quite celebrated lines were left out from the text; others were tastelessly altered or simply misunderstood.

- He praises Shakespeare’s poetic mastery and intensity of Lear’s agony, psychological consistency and insight in the development of the character of Lear. Whatever be his capacity as a poet, Theobald was a good editor and critic. As early as 1715 he was writing on Shakespeare with sensitivity which gave the requisite momentum for Shakespeare studies to move forward. He studied what Shakespeare did with his sources. Taking King Lear, he praises the exquisite poetic mastery revealed at high points in Lear’s agony. He also shows remarkable psychological consistency and insight in the development of the character of Lear.

- Sympathizes Shakespeare. Corneille saw no fault in Oedipus’s ignorance,  but Theobald states rashness and impatience of temper as his fault. Jealousy and rage destroyed Othello. Theobald takes up the degree of culpability (state of guilt) permissible in a tragic hero. Against the view of Corneille that Oedipus was not guilty of any fault because of his ignorance, Theobald argues that rashness and impetuous temper are his faults for which he pays dearly. Taking up the case of Othello, Theobald states that though the moor is brave, open, generous and a loving person, ‘jealousy and rage native to him and which cannot be controlled’ undid him. Thus Theobald’s writings are full of sympathetic insight into Shakespeare.

- Theobald suggested many improvements in Shakespeare’s works. We are indebted to Theobald for the numerous emendations he suggested to improve the text left by Shakespeare. Where passages were unintelligible he consulted known sources of usages elsewhere in Shakespeare or other Elizabethan literature which might help in elucidation.

 Henry Fielding  (1707-54)

- He brought a blast of fresh air into the world of criticism. Fielding came representing a new type of literature which finally transformed the arena of critical studies. Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones were published in 1740 and he brought with him all the trappings of Neo-classical criticism. Yet he knew that he was an innovator: ‘For as I am, in reality, the founder of a new province of writing, so I am at liberty to make what laws I please therein’.

- In the Preface to Joseph Andrews Fielding had appealed to Homer and Aristotle as authorities for his own ‘species of poetry’.

- Now a comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose: differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters.

- The genre has a light and ridiculous fable and persons of inferior rank and manners instead of superior ones. In sentiments and diction it substituted the ‘ludicrous’ for the ‘sublime’.

(ludicrous=foolish, unreasonable, or unsuitable, silly)

- For Fielding the inspiration came from Homer. It is noteworthy that in the long history of the English novel, the two most innovative writers—Fielding and James Joyce—found the basis for their innovation in Homer.

- Lord Byron called Fielding ‘the prose Homer’ and Coleridge was to class him with Sophocles and Ben Jonson.

- Fielding was a master of composition! The Oedipus, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones are considered the three most perfect plots ever planned.