The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems

by Alexander Pope

and which, in spite of all his errors, and jealousies, and petty vices, was the master-passion of Alexander Pope.

line	reference	meaning
6	censure	the word has here its original meaning of "judge," not its modern "judge severely" or "blame."
8		Because each foolish poem provokes a host of foolish commentators and critics.
15-16		This assertion that only a good writer can be a fair critic is not to be accepted without reservation.
17	wit	The word "wit" has a number of different meanings in this poem, and the student should be careful to discriminate between them. It means mind, intellect, l. 61; learning, culture, l 727; imagination, genius, l. 82; the power to discover amusing analogies, or the apt expression of such an analogy, ll. 449, 297; a man possessed of wit in its various significations, l. 45; this last form usually occurs in the plural, ll. 104, 539.
26	the maze of schools	the labyrinth of conflicting systems of thought, especially of criticism.
21	coxcombs ... fools	what is the difference in meaning between these words in this passage?
30-31		In this couplet Pope hits off the spiteful envy of conceited critics toward successful writers. If the critic can write himself, he hates the author as a rival; if he cannot, he entertains against him the deep grudge an incapable man so often cherishes toward an effective worker.
34	Mævius	a poetaster whose name has been handed down by Virgil and Horace. His name, like that of his associate, Bavius, has become a by-word for a wretched scribbler.
	Apollo	here thought of as the god of poetry. The true poet was inspired by Apollo; but a poetaster like Mævius wrote without inspiration, as it were, in spite of the god.
40-43		Pope here compares "half-learned" critics to the animals which old writers reported were bred from the Nile mud. In Antony and Cleopatra, for example, Lepidus says, "Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun; so is your crocodile." Pope thinks of these animals as in the unformed stage, part "kindled into life, part a lump of mud." So these critics are unfinished things for which no proper name can be found. "Equivocal generation" is the old term used to denote spontaneous generation of this sort. Pope applies it here to critics without proper training who spring spontaneously from the mire of ignorance.
44	tell	count
45		The idea is that a vain wit's tongue could out-talk a hundred ordinary men's.
53	pretending wit	presuming, or ambitious mind.
56-58	memory ... understanding imagination	This is the old threefold division of the human mind. Pope means that where one of these faculties is above the average in any individual, another of them is sure to fall below. Is this always the case?
63	peculiar arts	special branches of knowledge.
73		In what sense can nature be called the source, the end, and the test of art?
76	th' informing soul	explanation
80-81		What two meanings are attached to "wit" in this couplet?
84	'Tis more	it is more important.
	the Muse's steed	Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, was supposed to be the horse of the Muses and came to be considered a symbol of poetic genius.
86	gen'rous	high-bred.
88		What is the difference between "discovered" and "devised"?
94	Parnassus' top	the Muses were supposed to dwell on the top of Parnassus, a mountain in Greece. Great poets are here thought of as having climbed the mountain to dwell with the Muses.
96		What is (cf. text) "the immortal prize"?
99	She	i. e. learned Greece, especially Greek criticism, which obtained the rules of poetry from the practice of great poets, and, as it were, systematized their inspiration.
104	following wits	later scholars.
105		What is meant by "the mistress" and "the maid" in this line?
109	Doctor's bills	prescriptions.
112		These are the prosy commentators on great poets, whose dreary notes often disgust readers with the original.
120	fable	a plot.
123		What is the difference between "cavil" and "criticise"?
129	the Mantuan Muse	the poetry of Virgil, which Pope thinks the best commentary on Homer. In what sense is this to be understood?
130	Maro	Virgil, whose full name was Publius Vergilius Maro, Pope here praises Virgil's well-known imitation of Homer. Since "nature and Homer were the same," a young poet like Virgil could do nothing better than copy Homer.
138	the Stagirite	Aristotle, a native of Stagyra, was the first and one of the greatest of literary critics. His "rules" were drawn from the practice of great poets, and so, according to Pope, to imitate Homer was to obey the "ancient rules."
141		There are some beauties in poetry which cannot be explained by criticism.
142	happiness	used here to express the peculiar charm of spontaneous poetic expression as contrasted with "care," 'i.e.' the art of revising and improving, which can be taught.
152	vulgar bounds	the limitations imposed upon ordinary writers.
157	out of ... rise	surpass the ordinary scenes of nature.
159	Great wits	poets of real genius.
160	faults	here used in the sense of irregularities, exceptions to the rules of poetry. When these are justified by the poet's genius, true critics do not presume to correct them. In many editions this couplet comes after l. 151. This was Pope's first arrangement, but he later shifted it to its present position.
162	As Kings	the Stuart kings claimed the right to "dispense with laws," that is, to set them aside in special instances. In 1686 eleven out of twelve English judges decided in a test case that "it is a privilege inseparably connected with the sovereignty of the king to dispense with penal laws, and that according to his own judgment." The English people very naturally felt that such a privilege opened the door to absolute monarchy, and after the fall of James II, Parliament declared in 1689 that "the pretended power of suspending of laws ... without the consent of Parliament, is illegal."
164	its End	the purpose of every law of poetry, namely, to please the reader. This purpose must not be "transgressed," 'i.e.' forgotten by those who wish to make exceptions to these laws.
166	their precedent	the example of classic poets.
179	stratagems ... error	things in the classic poets which to carping critics seem faults are often clever devices to make a deeper impression on the reader.
180	Homer nods	Horace in his Art of Poetry used this figure to imply that even the greatest poet sometimes made mistakes. Pope very neatly suggests that it may be the critic rather than the poet who is asleep.
181	each ancient Altar	used here to denote the works of the great classic writers. The whole passage down to l. 200 is a noble outburst of enthusiasm for the poets whom Pope had read so eagerly in early youth.
186	consenting Pæans	unanimous hymns of praise.
194	must ... found	are not destined to be discovered till some future time.
196		Who is "the last, the meanest of your sons"?
203	bias	mental bent, or inclination.
208		This line is based upon physiological theories which are now obsolete. According to these wind or air supplied the lack of blood or of animal spirits in imperfectly constituted bodies. To such bodies Pope compares those ill-regulated minds where a deficiency of learning and natural ability is supplied by self-conceit.
216	The Pierian spring	the spring of the Muses, who were called Pierides in Greek mythology. It is used here as a symbol for learning, particularly for the study of literature.
222	the lengths behind	the great spaces of learning that lie behind the first objects of our study.
225-232		This fine simile is one of the best expressions in English verse of the modesty of the true scholar, due to his realization of the boundless extent of knowledge. It was such a feeling that led Sir Isaac Newton to say after all his wonderful discoveries, "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all the time undiscovered before me."
224	peculiar parts	individual parts.
248	ev'n thine, O Rome	there are so many splendid churches in Rome that an inhabitant of this city would be less inclined than a stranger to wonder at the perfect proportions of any of them. But there are two, at least, the Pantheon and St. Peter's, which might justly evoke the admiration even of a Roman. It was probably of one of these that Pope was thinking.
265		What is the difference between "principles" and "notions" in this line?
265	La Mancha's Knight	Don Quixote. The anecdote that follows is not taken from Cervantes' novel, but from a continuation of it by an author calling himself Avellanada. The story is that Don Quixote once fell in with a scholar who had written a play about a persecuted queen of Bohemia. Her innocence in the original story was established by a combat in the lists, but this the poet proposed to omit as contrary to the rules of Aristotle. The Don, although professing great respect for Aristotle, insisted that the combat was the best part of the story and must be acted, even if a special theater had to be built for the purpose, or the play given in the open fields. Pope quotes this anecdote to show how some critics in spite of their professed acceptance of general rules are so prejudiced in favor of a minor point as to judge a whole work of art from one standpoint only.
270	Dennis	John Dennis, a playwright and critic of Pope's time. Pope and he were engaged in frequent quarrels, but this first reference to him in Pope's works is distinctly complimentary. The line probably refers to some remarks by Dennis on the Grecian stage in his Impartial Critic, a pamphlet published in 1693.
273	nice	discriminating; in l. 286 the meaning is "over-scrupulous, finicky."
276	unities	according to the laws of dramatic composition generally accepted in Pope's day, a play must observe the unities of subject, place, and time. That is, it must have one main theme, not a number of diverse stories, for its plot; all the scenes must be laid in one place, or as nearly so as possible; and the action must be begun and finished within the space of twenty-four hours.
286	curious	fastidious, over-particular.
288	by a love to parts	by too diligent attention to particular parts of a work of art, which hinders them from forming a true judgment of the work as a whole.
289	conceit	an uncommon or fantastic expression of thought. "Conceits" had been much sought after by the poets who wrote in the first half of the seventeenth century.
297	True Wit	here opposed to the "conceit" of which Pope has been speaking. It is defined as a natural idea expressed in fit words.
299	whose truth ... find	of whose truth we find ourselves at once convinced.
308	take upon content	take for granted.
311-317		Show how Pope uses the simile of the "prismatic glass" to distinguish between "false eloquence" and "true expression."
319	decent	becoming
328	Fungoso	a character in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour. He is the son of a miserly farmer, and tries hard, though all in vain, to imitate the dress and manners of a fine gentleman.
329	These sparks	these would-be dandies.
337	Numbers	rhythm, meter.
341	haunt Parnassus	read poetry. — ear:' note that in Pope's day this word rhymed with "repair" and "there."
344	these	critics who care for the meter only in poetry insist on the proper number of syllables in a line, no matter what sort of sound or sense results. For instance, they do not object to a series of "open vowels," i. e. hiatuses caused by the juxtaposition of such words as "tho" and "oft," "the" and "ear." Line 345 is composed especially to show how feeble a rhythm results from such a succession of "open vowels." They do not object to bolstering up a line with "expletives," such as "do" in l. 346, nor to using ten "low words," i.e. short, monosyllabic words to make up a line.
347		With this line Pope passes unconsciously from speaking of bad critics to denouncing some of the errors of bad poets, who keep on using hackneyed phrases and worn-out metrical devices.
356	Alexandrine	a line of six iambic feet, such as l. 357, written especially to illustrate this form. Why does Pope use the adjective "needless" here?
361	Denham's strength ... Waller's sweetness	Waller and Denham were poets of the century before Pope; they are almost forgotten to-day, but were extravagantly admired in his time. Waller began and Denham continued the fashion of writing in "closed" heroic couplets, i.e. in verses where the sense is for the most part contained within one couplet and does not run over into the next as had been the fashion in earlier verse. Dryden said that "the excellence and dignity of rhyme were never fully known till Mr. Waller taught it," and the same critic spoke of Denham's poetry as "majestic and correct."
370	Ajax	one of the heroes of the Iliad. He is represented more than once as hurling huge stones at his enemies. Note that Pope has endeavored in this and the following line to convey the sense of effort and struggle. What means does he employ? Do you think he succeeds?
372	Camilla	a heroine who appears in the latter part of the Æneid fighting against the Trojan invaders of Italy. Virgil says that she was so swift of foot that she might have run over a field of wheat without breaking the stalks, or across the sea without wetting her feet. Pope attempts in l. 373 to reproduce in the sound and movement of his verse the sense of swift flight.
374	Timotheus	a Greek poet and singer who was said to have played and sung before Alexander the Great. The reference in this passage is to Dryden's famous poem, Alexander's Feast.
376	the son of Libyan Jove	Alexander the Great, who boasted that he was the son of Jupiter. The famous oracle of Jupiter Ammon situated in the Libyan desert was visited by Alexander, who was said to have learned there the secret of his parentage.
383	Dryden	this fine compliment is paid to a poet whom Pope was proud to acknowledge as his master. "I learned versification wholly from Dryden's works," he once said. Pope's admiration for Dryden dated from early youth, and while still a boy he induced a friend to take him to see the old poet in his favorite coffee-house.
391	admire	not used in our modern sense, but in its original meaning, "to wonder at." According to Pope, it is only fools who are lost in wonder at the beauties of a poem; wise men "approve," i.e. test and pronounce them good.
396-7		Pope acknowledged that in these lines he was alluding to the uncharitable belief of his fellow-Catholics that all outside the fold of the Catholic church were sure to be damned.
400	sublimes	purifies
404	each	each age.
415	joins with Quality	takes sides with "the quality," i.e. people of rank.
429		Are so clever that they refuse to accept the common and true belief, and so forfeit their salvation.
441	sentences	the reference is to a mediaeval treatise on Theology, by Peter Lombard, called the Book of Sentences. It was long used as a university text-book.
444	Scotists and Thomists	mediæval scholars, followers respectively of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. A long dispute raged between their disciples. In this couplet Pope points out that the dispute is now forgotten, and the books of the old disputants lie covered with cobwebs in Duck-lane, a street in London where second-hand books were sold in Pope's day. He calls the cobwebs "kindred," because the arguments of Thomists and Scotists were as fine spun as a spider's web.
449		"The latest fashionable folly is the test, or the proof, of a quick, up-to-date wit." In other words, to be generally accepted an author must accept the current fashion, foolish though it may be.
457		This was especially true in Pope's day when literature was so closely connected with politics that an author's work was praised or blamed not upon its merits, but according to his, and the critic's, politics.
459	Parsons, Critics, Beaus	Dryden, the head of English letters in the generation before Pope, had been bitterly assailed on various charges by parsons, like Jeremy Collier, critics like Milbourn, and fine gentlemen like the Duke of Buckingham. But his works remained when the jests that were made against them were forgotten.
463		Sir Richard Blackmore, a famous doctor in Dryden's day, was also a very dull and voluminous writer. He attacked Dryden in a poem called A Satire against Wit. Luke Milbourn was a clergyman of the same period, who abused Dryden's translation of Virgil.
465	Zoilus	a Greek critic who attacked Homer.
481		The English language and the public taste had changed very rapidly during the century preceding Pope. He imagined that these changes would continue so that no poet's reputation would last longer than a man's life, "bare threescore," and Dryden's poetry would come to be as hard to understand and as little read as Chaucer's at that time. It is worth noting that both Dryden and Pope rewrote parts of Chaucer in modern English.
506-7		Explain why "wit" is feared by wicked men and shunned by the virtuous, hated by fools, and "undone" or ruined by knaves.
521	sacred	accursed, like the Latin sacer.
527	spleen	bad temper.
534	the fat age	the reign of Charles II, as ll. 536-537 show, when literature became notoriously licentious.
538	Jilts ... statesmen	loose women like Lady Castlemaine and the Duchess of Portsmouth had great influence on the politics of Charles II's time, and statesmen of that day like Buckingham and Etheredge wrote comedies.
541	mask	it was not uncommon in Restoration times for ladies to wear a mask in public, especially at the theater. Here the word is used to denote the woman who wore a mask.
544	a Foreign reign	the reign of William III, a Dutchman. Pope, as a Tory and a Catholic, hated the memory of William, and here asserts, rather unfairly, that his age was marked by an increase of heresy and infidelity.
545	Socinus	the name of two famous heretics, uncle and nephew, of the sixteenth century, who denied the divinity of Christ.
549		Pope insinuates here that the clergy under William III hated an absolute monarch so much that they even encouraged their hearers to question the absolute power of God.
551	admir'd	see note to l. 391.
552	Wit's Titans	wits who defied heaven as the old Titans did the gods. The reference is to a group of freethinkers who came into prominence in King William's reign.
556	scandalously nice	so over-particular as to find cause for scandal where none exists.
557	mistake an author into vice	mistakenly read into an author vicious ideas which are not really to be found in his work.
575		Things that men really do not know must be brought forward modestly as if they had only been forgotten for a time.
577	that only	good-breeding alone
585	Appius	a nickname for John Dennis, taken from his tragedy, Appius and Virginia, which appeared two years before the Essay on Criticism. Lines 585-587 hit off some of the personal characteristics of this hot-tempered critic. "Tremendous" was a favorite word with Dennis.
588	tax	blame, find fault with.
591		In Pope's time noblemen could take degrees at the English universities without passing the regular examinations.
617		Dryden's Fables published in 1700 represented the very best narrative poetry of the greatest poet of his day. D'Urfey's Tales, on the other hand, published in 1704 and 1706, were collections of dull and obscene doggerel by a wretched poet.
618	with him	according to "the bookful blockhead."
619	Garth	a well-known doctor of the day, who wrote a much admired mock-heroic poem called The Dispensary. His enemies asserted that he was not really the author of the poem.
623		Such foolish critics are just as ready to pour out their opinions on a man in St. Paul's cathedral as in the bookseller's shops in the square around the church, which is called St. Paul's churchyard.
632	proud to know	proud of his knowledge.
636	humanly	an old form for "humanely."
642	love to praise	a love of praising men.
648	Mæonian Star	Homer. Mæonia, or Lydia, was a district in Asia which was said to have been the birthplace of Homer.
652	conquered Nature	Aristotle was a master of all the knowledge of nature extant in his day.
653	Horace	the famous Latin poet whose Ars Poetica was one of Pope's models for the Essay on Criticism.
662	fle'me	phlegm, according to old ideas of physiology, one of the four "humours" or fluids which composed the body. Where it abounded it made men dull and heavy, or as we still say "phlegmatic."
663-4		A rather confused couplet. It means, "Horace suffers as much by the misquotations critics make from his work as by the bad translations that wits make of them."
665	Dionysius	Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a famous Greek critic. Pope's manner of reference to him seems to show that he had never read his works.
667	Petronius	a courtier and man of letters of the time of Nero. Only a few lines of his remaining work contain any criticism.
669	Quintilian's work	the Institutiones Oratoriæ of Quintilianus, a famous Latin critic of the first century A.D.
675	Longinus	a Greek critic of the third century A.D., who composed a famous work called A Treatise on the Sublime. It is a work showing high imagination as well as careful reasoning, and hence Pope speaks of the author as inspired by the Nine, i. e. the Muses.
692		The willful hatred of the monks for the works of classical antiquity tended to complete that destruction of old books which the Goths began when they sacked the Roman cities. Many ancient writings were erased, for example, in order to get parchment for monkish chronicles and commentaries.
693	Erasmus	perhaps the greatest scholar of the Renaissance. Pope calls him the "glory of the priesthood" on account of his being a monk of such extraordinary learning, and "the shame" of his order, because he was so abused by monks in his lifetime. Is this a good antithesis?
697	Leo's golden days	the pontificate of Leo X (1513-1521). Leo himself was a generous patron of art and learning. He paid particular attention to sacred music (l. 703), and engaged Raphael to decorate the Vatican with frescoes. Vida (l. 704) was an Italian poet of his time, who became famous by the excellence of his Latin verse. One of his poems was on the art of poetry, and it is to this that Pope refers in l. 706.
707-8		Cremona was the birthplace of Vida; Mantua, of Virgil.
709		The allusion is to the sack of Rome by the Constable Bourbon's army in 1527. This marked the end of the golden age of arts in Italy.
714	Boileau	a French poet and critic (1636-1711). His L'Art Poetique is founded on Horace's Ars Poetica.
723	the Muse	i. e. the genius, of John Sheffield (1649-1720), Duke of Buckingham (not to be confounded with Dryden's enemy). Line 724 is quoted from his Essay on Poetry.
725	Roscommon	Wentworth Dillon (1633-1684), Earl of Roscommon, author of a translation of the Ars Poetica and of An Essay on Translated Verse.
729	Walsh	a commonplace poet (1663-1708), but apparently a good critic. Dryden, in fact, called him the best critic in the nation. He was an early friend and judicious adviser of Pope himself, who showed him much of his early work, including the first draft of this very poem. Pope was sincerely attached to him, and this tribute to his dead friend is marked by deep and genuine feeling.
738	short excursions	such as this Essay on Criticism instead of longer and more ambitious poems which Pope planned and in part executed in his boyhood. There is no reason to believe with Mr. Elwin that this passage proves that Pope formed the design of the poem after the death of Walsh.

1. mind, intellect, l. 61;
2. learning, culture, l 727;
3. imagination, genius, l. 82;
4. the power to discover amusing analogies, or the apt expression of such an analogy, ll. 449, 297;
5. a man possessed of wit in its various significations, l. 45;

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all the time undiscovered before me."

[Contents]

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[Notes on An Essay on Man, Epistle I]

Introduction

The

Essay on Man