A forced march through An Essay on Criticism (1711) probably has led far too many students to dislike both the poem and the poet. Pope’s elegant and influential Essay is often included in hurried survey courses as a “two-for”: a poem by a major author and a handy compendium of “critical ideas.” One is likely to walk away from such an experience with the general idea that Pope thought it was important to know the Ancients, take writing seriously, and follow “Nature,” which is “Order” and which will somehow teach the “Rules” all would-be writers need to know. A reader is also likely to get the impression of Pope as clever but dogmatic and perhaps arrogant: “right opinionated,” Thomas Berger’s hero in Little Big Man says after recalling how Pope was read aloud to him as a boy, “like that fellow had the last word on everything.”

This impression is not what Pope was after. One of his rules for good critics is that they must be amiable as well as accurate, speaking with “seeming Diffidence” even when sure of their views, and avoiding “positive” pronouncements:

1. Men must be taught as if you taught them not;

2. And Things unknown propos’d as Things forgot.