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Alexander PopeAn Essay on Criticism
Nonfiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1711A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Muse
As a repeated allusion and symbol that develops over the course of the poem, Alexander Pope’s references to the muse or the muses constitute a motif. The muses in Greek mythology were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory), and each muse supervised a particular art or science. The muses most associated with poetry are Calliope (epic poetry) and Terpsichore (lyric poetry and dance); classical literature often began with an invocation of the muse, whom it treated as synonymous with the poetic imagination. Pope also mentions the “Pierian spring,” which was a mountain sacred to the muses.
In An Essay on Criticism, the muses are both a source of inspiration and something that poets and critics can access through good judgment and proper education. For example, Pope advises that reading Homer can give one access to the muses’ divine inspiration:
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 (Lines 124-27).
In addition, Pope references a personal muse and characterizes certain patrons and critics as an inspiration for the muse because they support art and poetry. For example, he thanks Walsh near the end of the poem, saying: “This praise at least a grateful Muse may give: / The Muse, whose early voice you taught to sing” (Lines 736-37). For Pope, the muse is not just one thing; rather, it moves between a public symbol for art and a private source of inspiration, harkening both to the Balance Between Art and Nature and to the classical lineage in which Pope locates himself.
Rome
Rome is a symbol for the height of civilization and learning. In his section on the history of literary criticism, Pope argues that Rome’s expansion into foreign lands (including Britain) brought with it an expansion of knowledge and fine art: “Learning and Rome alike in empire grew; / And arts still followed where her eagles flew” (Lines 683-84). Consequently, Rome’s downfall also brought with it a retrenchment of civilization that only began to be remedied in the Renaissance: “Rome’s ancient Genius, o’er its ruins spread, / Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverend head” (Lines 699-700). Pope also traces a lineage of writers from Rome to Britain, developing his argument that studying the rules of ancient literature will lead to good art and criticism, as some Britons, “Who durst assert the juster ancient cause, […] here restored wit’s fundamental laws” (Lines 721-22). Rome symbolizes both literary genius and the fragility of such genius in the face of The Causes of Poor Aesthetic Judgment.
Magazine
Pope uses the idea of a magazine (or storage place) for artillery to develop his thesis about education and the need to study ancient literature in order to be good poets and critics of the modern age. He also develops his argument about the balance between art and nature with this particular symbol:
Thus useful arms in magazines we place,
All ranged in order, and disposed with grace,
But less to please the eye, than arm the hand,
Still fit for use, and ready at command (Lines 671-74).
Pope is specifically praising the balance of rules and method in the work of ancient rhetorician Quintilian (c. CE 35 - c. CE 95) with this simile, but the comparison also establishes the well-stocked magazine as a symbol for an organized and useful work that follows the rules in a graceful (natural) way. As a relatively recent innovation, the magazine suggests the way in which writers and critics can bring the learning of the past into the present.
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By Alexander Pope
