English Literature / Unit 11 ENL 1008 short lesson, about 20 seconds
An Essay on Criticism
Captions available
The idea
An Essay on Criticism, of seventeen eleven, is a verse essay in heroic couplets on literary judgment, after Horace. Its lines became proverbs: "A little learning is a dang'rous thing," "To err is human; to forgive, divine," and "The sound must seem an echo to the sense."
In practice
Couplets that became proverbs.
Where people slip
Pope argues that art, not chance, makes ease.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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