Boileau's art of poetry was carefully studied, as bits of it
were judiciously appropriated by Pope. Another authority was the great
Bossu, who wrote in 1675 a treatise on epic poetry; and the modern
reader may best judge of the doctrines characteristic of the school, by
the naive pedantry with which Addison, the typical man of taste of his
time, invokes the authority of Bossu and Aristotle, in his exposition of
Paradise Lost.[3] English writers were treading in the steps of Boileau
and Horace. Roscommon selected for a poem the lively topic of
"translated verse," and Sheffield had written with Dryden an essay upon
satire, and afterwards a more elaborate essay upon poetry. To these
masterpieces, said Addison, another masterpiece was now added by Pope's
Essay upon Criticism. Not only did Addison applaud, but later critics
have spoken of their wonder at the penetration, learning, and taste
exhibited by so young a man. The essay was carefully finished. Written
apparently in 1709, it was published in 1711. This was as short a time,
said Pope to Spence, as he ever let anything of his lie by him; he no
doubt employed it, according to his custom, in correcting and revising,
and he had prepared himself by carefully digesting the whole in prose.
It is, however, written without any elaborate logical plan, though it is
quite sufficiently coherent for its purpose. The maxims on which Pope
chiefly dwells are, for the most part, the obvious rules which have been
the common property of all generations of critics.
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