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Alexander Pope on Poetry

1688–1744 England

← All quotes by Alexander Pope

14 quotes

I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

An Essay on Criticism (1709)

Poets heap virtues, painters gems, at will,
And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill.

The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.

While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.

The Dunciad (1813)

Poets like painters, thus unskill'd to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.

An Essay on Criticism (1709)

What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starv'd hackney sonneteer or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines.

An Essay on Criticism (1709)

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time.

Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,
With whom my muse began, with whom shall end.

The Dunciad (1813)

And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!

The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Alexander Pope (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.