Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism and Joseph Addison's Tatler article
In the eighteenth century, British literature was evolving rapidly. Alongside it, British literary criticism was evolving as well. In 1711, Alexander Pope wrote An Essay on Criticism, which was a reaction to this new wave criticism, seeking to change and improve it. Earlier, on April 10, 1710, Joseph Addison published an article in the Tatler magazine that also reacted to critics and criticism, but it only mocked them. This essay will look at the two works and show that these differences in approach are the reason why Pope's Essay is famous even in the modern times, while Addison's article was forgotten a long time ago.
Firstly, both Alexander Pope and Joseph Addison speak primarily about bad critics of their age, though whereas Pope's Essay speaks about them at length, and in general, Addison's description is more specific:
He has a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir, than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks out into a panegyric upon Harry Stevens. He thinks he gives you an account of Joseph Addison when he tells the subject he treats of, the name of the editor, and the year in which it was printed. Or if you draw him into the further particulars, he cries upon the goodness of the paper, extols the diligence of the corrector, and is transported with the beauty of the letter. This he looks upon to be found learning and substantial criticism.
(The Tatler, No 158, 34)
In these five short sentences, Joseph Addison described a very impressive portrait of a bad critic from Pope's essay, whose flaws are as following: the critic of Addison clearly favours more modern authors over the classics (i.e. Harry Stevens vs. Herodotus), something that Pope specifically disapproves of (Pope, 395-407), not to mention that he prefers other authors to Virgil and Horace, who are two of Pope's most respected classical authors (Pope, 120-138, 653-665) along with Homer.
The rejection of Virgil, in particular, may be considered a grave offence. In the short synopsis for his Essay, Alexander Pope points out that nature is the best source of justice; that rules and art improve nature; that those rules are derived from ancient poets such as Homer and Virgil; and thus they are necessary to be studied by critics from them to be good (Pope, pg. 17-18). Since Tom Folio does not favour Virgil, Joseph Addison's article implies that he does not follow Pope's scheme and thus cannot be considered a good critic.
Besides favouring some authors over others (thus showing partiality that Alexander Pope also disliked, 394-408), Addison's quote indicates that as a critic Tom Folio also tends to judge the object of his criticism in parts or components, rather than as a whole - another sign of a bad critic that Tom Folio is by Alexander Pope's standards (Pope, 233-288). This, however, is where the similarities between the two literary works end and their differences begin.
Undoubtedly, Alexander Pope's essay is much more expansive and descriptive than the article of Joseph Addison, dwelling on other flaws of the critics than just those described above. His Essay does not only point out the flaws of the potential critics, it also gives advice how to become a good critic, it talks about poetry and its literary development in general, and it provides examples of the classic authors as well. Addison does not do that; all he does is show the flaws and shortcomings of Tom Folio in fuller detail, showing how he has no opinion of his own and how he confuses the knowledge of the details for the actual thing. Tom Folio, Addison says directly, is no critic (though he may think of himself as such), but is actually a "pedant", a "learned idiot" that has "little touches of coxcomb" (Addison, 34), i.e. of genuine foolishness or insanity that was supposedly in royal jesters of a bygone age. Pope, it should be noted, does not go that far so directly: he most certainly mocks the would-be critics who sully the names of such great poets as John Dryden. However, he does not call them "idiots" or anything so crudely: he mocks them with a great amount of wit. He mocks them only as literary critics, not as society members, unlike Joseph Addison - the latter is confronted by Tom Folio face-to-face and is able to get rid of him only after quite a bit of effort that left Addison clearly irritated (hence he calls Tom Folio "a learned idiot").
Moreover, as stated previously, Alexander Pope does not restrain himself to just criticism of the critics, but he tries to do something more constructive with his Essay; he may have genuinely wanted to advise any would-be critics how to criticize correctly (in his opinion) and whom to criticize. In an admittedly sarcastic way, Pope honestly tries to make the literary world a better place both for the potential critics and the potentially criticized.
Joseph Addison's attitude towards the would-be critics such as Tom Folio is different, purely mocking, not seeking any improvement of the literary world; his article is just entertainment and a rather savage and biting one as well. It may be dealing with some of the similar topics as Alexander Pope's Essay dealt with, but unlike the Essay, the article does not develop them beyond subjects for laughter or sarcasm.
The Tatler article and the Essay on Criticism both deal with literary critics and the problems that some of these critics present both to the literature of the eighteenth century and the society (Tom Folio was quite annoying to Addison). However, if the Essay on Criticism tried to deal with the problem of criticism and solve it to some extent, the Tatler article does not - it just mocks and complains about them, and this is why that Pope's Essay on Criticism is widely known even in modern times, while Addison's article is not.
Works cited
Addison, Joseph. The Tatler. By the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; In two volumes. ... Vol. Volume 2. London, 1777. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale: UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. Accessed 22 Oct. 2011
Pope, Alexander. The Major Works. Ed. Pat Rogers. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 2008.
Unless indicated otherwise, references for Pope indicate poetry lines, not page numbers.