Being a critic-an art or a great responsibility?

We think that all people have talent, especially, talent for writing. Is it right? What happens with those who simply cannot write or do not have enough imagination to produce something interesting and unique? Will they disappear? No, they will become critics and they will try to make the others to understand poets writings. At the beginning of the essay, Alexander Pope attributes to critics an essential role: a critic is the one who influences the reader, he can make the reader to enjoy a writing or to hate it. That is why a bad criticism can be more dangerous than a bad writing, because it can influence in a negative way our sense. Critics, as poets, are people with fine taste, they have the seeds of judgement in their minds. In fact, critics are poets who did not find their talent, who are bewildered by doctrines, rules have destroyed their talent. Critics taste is spoiled by false education. They were in search of wit, but they lost their talent. Being a critic is not as easy as it seems to be. As achieving the fine taste has some rules, this transformation from a poet to a critic supposes, also, practice and rules. Firstly, a critic must be conscious of his value and of his taste, he should be aware of his own limitations. Alexander Pope always makes reference, in his essay, to nature. Thus, nature is the symbol of stability, the best guide of judgement because she is unchanged. This stability means a perfect understanding of the text. Critics must write only what they understand , they are not allowed to write things or words from their imagination, because they are not poets. An important aspect is the fact that critics should not teach poets how to write, they will not promote some rules of writing or some concepts, because this will lead to superficiality , this will destroy poets talent. Apart from nature, critics must take into consideration the contribution of the ancient writers, because their writings defeated the elapsing of time, they are valuable for our society. They should peruse during the day each ancients work, every page and during the night they will meditate and they will try to understand and to interpret theirs sayings. The most important ancient writers are Homer, Vergiliu and Aristotle. This is a perfect modality to form an ability of understanding someones work and being able to comment it. Being ancients so valuable, the author critics modern poets by saying that they offend a real writing, they introduce concepts which transform a writing and make it false and impossible to understand it. From the beginning of the essay we observe that the critic is in its centre. This makes us to see a critic as a superior human being and maybe we will reckon that he is more important than the writer himself. Is it a valid affirmation? No. Besides taste and understanding, another important quality of a critic is humility. He should be humble and always in searching for new sources of inspiration, no matter if these come from friends or foes.(Trust not yourself, but your defects to know,/Make use of every friend-and every foe).Is humility enough? Criticism without deep understanding is not criticism. Deep understanding is based on multiple readings. At a first reading the critic is not able to observe the structure of the writing, how the text was created .He will focus on the subject, on the characters and the narration. Readings poetics is based on re-reading the work of art. At a second reading we already know what is happening with the characters and our

mind is focused on how the writing was created, what concepts are present in the text and, thus, we can find the key and, then, recreate it. In this way we analyse the work of art with the same passion with the author created it.(A perfect judge will read each work of wit/With the same spirit that its author writ).An important aspect is the fact that we are not allowed to analyse each part of the writing, we must see it as a whole, as a united work, because its beauty consists on blending all these parts together. It does not matter if a critic does mistakes .If you want to avoid great mistakes, you have to commit them and to be conscious that you did something wrong. Alexander Pope admits that it is more important to commit mistakes than following other critics rules and transform your style into a superficial way of understanding a work. Rules lead to the desire of having a very complicated language, because only in this way a critic will be original. This is a wrong idea. A lot of complicated words hide the key of the interpretation, the fruit, and do not let the reader to penetrate the text and to understand it.(Words are like leaves, and where they most abound/Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found).A critic is not o poet, a poet is allowed to use complicated words because the critic will help readers to understand the work. But if critics use ambiguous ideas, who will realize what the author wanted to highlight? In the last part of the essay, Alexander Pope tries to realize a perfect image of a critic. Thus, for a critic learning from ancients works, being balanced and analyse the content is not everything. An interesting interpretation depends on the critics character. Integrity is the first quality. As a critic you have to be honest with you and with the reader. Integrity is followed by honesty and then, by modesty. A critic should speak only when he is sure on his sense, because mistakes makes the critic to be on the last place. But, an essential quality is courage, courage of expressing your thoughts and ideas. After revealing these qualities and their opposites, Alexander Pope makes a short history of the criticism.He emphasizes again the importance of the antiques as Aristotle, Horace, Dionysius, Petronius, Quintiallian, Longinus, then he illustrates the decay of criticism and its revival (Erasmus, Vida, Boileau, Lord Roscommon). As far as I am concerned, a critic is an artist because he is the one who is able to understand the poet, to get in his mind and, then, to recreate a valuable writing. Being a critic is more complicated and supposes more responsibility than being a poet. A poet just espresses his feelings without being concerned about how readers will understand his thoughts. Indeed, he is an artist, a creator. But the responsibility of the critic is bigger because it is not easy to find the key of a work, this supposes a lot of work and practice. Even if critics are poets without talent, without taste, I can strongly assert that a critic sometimes is more valuable than a poet. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that a critic means a clear and correct judgement, a good understanding of the writing and the ability to make understood by the readers. Iosif Andreea-Gabriela Group 5