Essay on Criticism Fragments

Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism (fragments)

First follow NATURE, and your Judgment frame
By her just Standard, which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged and Universal Light,
Life, Force, and Beauty, must to all impart,
At once the Source, and End, and Test of Art
Art from that Fund each just Supply provides,
Works without Show, and without Pomp presides:
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Those RULES of old discovered, not devised,
Are Nature still, but Nature Methodized;
Nature, like Liberty, is but restrained
By the same Laws which first herself ordained.
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You then whose Judgment the right Course would steer,
Know well each ANCIENT's proper Character,
His Fable, Subject, Scope in every Page,
Religion, Country, Genius of his Age:
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Be Homer's Works your Study, and Delight,
Read them by Day, and meditate by Night,
Thence form your Judgment, thence your Maxims bring,
And trace the Muses upward to their Spring;
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Learn hence for Ancient Rules a just Esteem;
To copy Nature is to copy Them.
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True Wit is Nature to Advantage dressed,
What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Expressed,
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True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance,
'Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
The Sound must seem an Echo to the Sense.
Soft is the Strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth Stream in smoother Numbers flows;
But when loud Surges lash the sounding Shore,
The hoarse, rough Verse should like the Torrent roar.
When Ajax strives, some Rocks' vast Weight to throw,
The Line too labours, and the Words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain,
Flies o'er th'unbending Corn, and skims along the Main.