SOURCE: "On Dryden and Pope," in Lectures on the English Poets and the English Comic Writers, edited by William Carew Hazlitt, George Bell and Sons, 1894, pp. 91-113.
An English essayist, Hazlitt was one of the most important critics of the Romantic age. In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in 1818, he discusses Pope's verse as an incomparably refined body of work which must, nevertheless, be placed outside the English tradition of "natural" verse established by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and John Milton.
This is a free excerpt of 85 words. There are 2,095 words (approx.
7 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Alexander Pope 1688–1744: Critical Essay by William Hazlitt Access Pass.
