SOURCE: MacClintock, William Darnall. “The Essay on Pope: Origin, Significance, Reception.” In his Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope: A History of the Five Editions, pp. 3-33. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1933.

In the following excerpt, MacClintock provides an extensive examination of Joseph Warton's Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, discussing its composition, the process of its publication, and its reception by and significance to contemporary literary studies and popular literary tastes.

The Essay in Relation to Contemporary Taste

Historians of culture agree that an actual revolution in taste took place when pleasure in the polished, moralizing couplets of Dryden, Pope, and Johnson gave place to enthusiasm for the freedom, individuality, strong emotion, and imagination of the romantic poets. To realize the contributions of both the classical and the romantic schools to the education of taste is to obtain a complete view...