In a modern prose translation of an extract from Pope’s ‘An Essay on Criticism’, Pope’s didactic message concerning the proper composition and nature of poetry becomes simply a functional statement of established principles. We know already, of course, that a poem’s sound “must seem an echo to the sense”. What elevates Pope’s poem above the simply instructive is its extraordinarily skilful and witty use of meter and diction to illustrate these …showed first 75 words of 1500 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1500 total…moment that feels ever fresh and spontaneous but is really a miracle of craftmanship. Pope does not write with this immediacy: he seeks to find generalisations that can be satirised and corrected. Though this extract from his poem is harmonic, supremely witty and a matchless example of poetic form fusing with meaning, it ultimately rejects the intensity and extended metaphorical meanings that other poets draw from the world around them to give poetry its beauty.