A Little Learning

[mono]

I read this poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) for the first time a few weeks ago, and have read it multiple times throughout the days. Like a number of great works, it seems to get better and better with each read (to the point that I find myself reciting many of the parts I have memorized), and I have found it as one of the most philosophical poems I have read in a while; but that seems quite typical of Pope and his contemporaries. What do you think?

A Little Learning

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes.
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults, one quiet tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed - but we may sleep.
In Wit, as Nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome
(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)
No single parts unequally surprise,
All comes united to th' admiring eyes;
No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;
The Whole at once is bold, and regular.

Alexander Pope

[mono]

By now, as I see I posted this nearly two weeks ago, this poem has haunted me. The amount of passion and logic Alexander Pope must have aimed at writing this work, I cannot imagine, and, as a great admirer of poetry, this poem continues to amaze me with each read. Pope's beginning analogy of the "Pierian spring" (referring to an ancient region of Macedonia, including Mount Olympus) begins it best, launching inspiration from the nine Muses in art, near the base of Mount Olympus and Orpheus, then climbing the mountain (much like Dante Alighieri's conception of the great mountain in Purgatorio) to, what Pope calls, a higher logic, reminiscent of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," which, regardless, seems the easiest relatable metaphor to any concept of evolution, then rendering one's self as judged by a "same spirit."
Pope, in my mind, continues to display most efficiently the evolution of a mind, evolving, in search for truth. The thought still dwells in my mind, however, whether Pope suggests a superiority of logic/reason over intuition/faith. For centuries, moral thinkers and philosophers (Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Jean-Paul Sartre, Plato, Aristotle, William James) have debated the equivalent art of decision-making - does logic with reason necessarily have a greater hierarchy over intuition with faith?

[Basil]

Mono,
Because this passage which you refer to as "A Little Learning" is but a mere snippet of a much larger work by Pope entitled "An Essay on Criticism (http://eserver.org/poetry/essay-on-criticism.html)," I can only offer the following advice: any truth you seek should come from the larger work and not this short fragment. For, as Pope states so beautifully in the piece you quote:

Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call,
But the joint Force and full Result of all.

Good luck!

[mono]

Mono,
Because this passage which you refer to as "A Little Learning" is but a mere snippet of a much larger work by Pope entitled "An Essay on Criticism (http://eserver.org/poetry/essay-on-criticism.html)," I can only offer the following advice: any truth you seek should come from the larger work and not this short fragment. For, as Pope states so beautifully in the piece you quote:

Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call,
But the joint Force and full Result of all.

Good luck!
Wow, I guess my poetry anthology forgot to cite its greater sources, considering, as I see, it began its citation from near the middle of the poem. Thank you, Basil, as I had no idea. :p