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LINE NOTES

[Line 17: Wit is used in the poem in a great variety of meanings (1) Here it seems to mean genius or fancy, (2) in line 36 a man of fancy, (3) in line 53 the understanding or powers of the mind, (4) in line 81 it means judgment.]

[Line 26: Schools–Different systems of doctrine or philosophy as taught by particular teachers.]

[Line 34: Maevius–An insignificant poet of the Augustan age, ridiculed by Virgil in his third Eclogue and by Horace in his tenth Epode.]

[Lines 80, 81: There is here a slight inaccuracy or inconsistency, since “wit” has a different meaning in the two lines: in 80, it means fancy, in 81, judgment.]

[Line 86: The winged courser.–Pegasus, a winged horse which sprang from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut off her head. As soon as born he left the earth and flew up to heaven, or, according to Ovid, took up his abode on Mount Helicon, and was always associated with the Muses.]

[Line 94: Parnassus.–A mountain of Phocis, which received its name from Parnassus, the son of Neptune, and was sacred to the Muses, Apollo and Bacchus.]

[Line 97: Equal steps.–Steps equal to the undertaking.]

[Line 129: The Mantuan Muse–Virgil called Maro in the next line (his full name being, Virgilius Publius Maro) born near Mantua, 70 B.C.]

[Lines 130-136: It is said that Virgil first intended to write a poem on the Alban and Roman affairs which he found beyond his powers, and then he imitated Homer:

Cum canerem reges et proelia Cynthius aurem
Vellit–Virg. Ecl. VI]

[Line 138: The Stagirite–Aristotle, born at the Greek town of Stageira on the Strymonic Gulf (Gulf of Contessa, in Turkey) 384 B.C., whose treatises on Rhetoric and the Art of Poetry were the earliest development of a Philosophy of Criticism and still continue to be studied.

The poet contradicts himself with regard to the principle he is here laying down in lines 271-272 where he laughs at Dennis for

Concluding all were desperate sots and fools
Who durst depart from Aristotle’s rules.]

[Line 180: Homer nods–Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus, ‘even the good Homer nods’–Horace, Epistola ad Pisones, 359.]

[Lines 183, 184: Secure from flames.–The poet probably alludes to such fires as those in which the Alexandrine and Palatine Libraries were destroyed. From envy’s fiercer rage.–Probably he alludes to the writings of such men as Maevius (see note to line 34) and Zoilus, a sophist and grammarian of Amphipolis, who distinguished himself by his criticism on Isocrates, Plato, and Homer, receiving the nickname of Homeromastic (chastiser of Homer). Destructive war–Probably an allusion to the irruption of the barbarians into the south of Europe. And all-involving age; that is, time. This is usually explained as an allusion to ‘the long reign of ignorance and superstition in the cloisters,’ but it is surely far-fetched, and more than the language will bear.]

[Lines 193, 194:

‘Round the whole world this dreaded name shall sound,
And reach to worlds that must not yet be found,”–COWLEY.]

[Line 216: The Pierian spring–A fountain in Pieria, a district round Mount Olympus and the native country of the Muses.]

[Line 248: And even thine, O Rome.–The dome of St Peter’s Church, designed by Michael Angelo.]

[Line 267: La Mancha’s Knight.–Don Quixote, a fictitious Spanish knight, the hero of a book written (1605) by Cervantes, a Spanish writer.]

[Line 270: Dennis, the son of a saddler in London, born 1657, was a mediocre writer, and rather better critic of the time, with whom Pope came a good deal into collision. Addison’s tragedy of Cato, for which Pope had written a prologue, had been attacked by Dennis. Pope, to defend Addison, wrote an imaginary report, pretending to be written by a notorious quack mad-doctor of the day, entitled The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Frenz of F. D. Dennis replied to it by his Character of Mr. Pope. Ultimately Pope gave him a place in his Dunciad, and wrote a prologue for his benefit.]