Skip to main content

What does the following extract from Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" mean? True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, What oft was Thought,...

Pope says here that "true wit," by which he means a wise, intelligent and incisive statement or turn of phrase, reflects a truth that already exists in nature but dresses it up or highlights it for people. True wit is not saying anything new or inventing anything new, but unearthing what already exists and making it clearer to people. It brings to clearer consciousness "what oft was Thought," in other words what was already hovering in a cloudy way in people's minds.


However, before a person put the right words around a preexisting truth, that truth was somewhat inchoate (chaotic) or half-formed in people's minds. So people thought it but couldn't express it well: it was "ne'er [never] so well Exprest [expressed]." But once the right words describe the truth in question, we instantly know it to be true: that is the meaning of "Whose truth convinced at Sight we find." (We are convinced of the truth at the sight of the words that describe it well.) These words give us "back the Image of our mind." In other words, the words express what we already think, even if we never had words for the thought.


This is an important verse because it expresses a key Enlightenment belief in a nutshell. The Enlightenment thinkers believed objective truth could be found and that language was a vehicle to make that truth clear. The right language, the perfect words, what never was so well expressed before, became a clear windowpane revealing truth to people. Poor, murky language, on the other hand, was like a foggy or dirty windowpane: it made it difficult to see the truth. Pope here celebrates the person who uses language in a way that illuminates truth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more