A bit of poetry

If you remember, on my visit to Massachusetts, my mom and I got stuck in the snow in Bennington, VT. We bought a book of poems and Robert Frost kept us company on the slow, slippery way home.

The book has turned out to be a jewel: one of those books that smells wise. Its tattered cover and thin, yellowed pages make me sad to think some day the classics will all be republished electronically. A computer screen is a poor second to a typed page. Books have a sage presence, where the glare from a screen reeks of inconstant, frivolous technology. And although they say some day we'll be able to interact with electronic books in ways that will "improve the reading experience", I'll stick with my books.

Anyway, back to my lovely old book: in it I read an excerpt from Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" and decided to read the whole thing. Of course, my only access to the poem is online being that the Spanish library system is HORRIBLY sub-par and even if it weren't, finding Pope in English in a town of 5,000 people would be quite a challenge.

Here you have some of my favorite passages. These are the parts I would have underlined and commented on had I had a real book in my hands.

Enjoy:

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first Sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts,
While from the bounded Level of our Mind,
Short Views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc'd, behold with strange Surprize
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise!
So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the Vales, and seem to tread the Sky;
Th' Eternal Snows appear already past,
And the first Clouds and Mountains seem the last:
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing Labours of the lengthen'd Way,
Th' increasing Prospect tires our wandering Eyes,
Hills peep o'er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

(...)

Poets like Painters, thus, unskill'd to trace
The naked Nature and the living Grace,
With Gold and Jewels cover ev'ry Part,
And hide with Ornaments their Want of Art.
True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest,
What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest,

(...)

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass,
Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The Face of Nature was no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.

(...)

Be not the first by whom the New are try'd,
Nor yet the last to lay the Old aside.

(...)

Avoid Extreams; and shun the Fault of such,
Who still are pleas'd too little, or too much.
At ev'ry Trifle scorn to take Offence,
That always shows Great Pride, or Little Sense;
Those Heads as Stomachs are not sure the best
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
Yet let not each gay Turn thy Rapture move,
For Fools Admire, but Men of Sense Approve;
As things seem large which we thro' Mists descry,
Dulness is ever apt to Magnify.(...)

Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading Notion of the Town;
They reason and conclude by Precedent,
And own stale Nonsense which they ne'er invent.

(...)

The Vulgar thus through Imitation err;
As oft the Learn'd by being Singular;
So much they scorn the Crowd, that if the Throng
By Chance go right, they purposely go wrong;
So Schismatics the plain Believers quit,
And are but damn'd for having too much Wit.

(...)

We think our Fathers Fools, so wise we grow;
Our wiser Sons, no doubt, will think us so.

(...)

Be silent always when you doubt your Sense;

And speak, tho' sure, with seeming Diffidence:

Some positive persisting Fops we know,

Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;

But you, with Pleasure own your Errors past,

An make each Day a Critick on the last.

'Tis not enough your Counsel still be true,
Blunt Truths more Mischief than nice Falsehood do;

(...)

http://poetry.eserver.org/essay-on-criticism.html