This paper examines John Dryden's and Alexander Pope's contrasting yet complementary theories of good writing and literary criticism. Drawing on Dryden's "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy" and Pope's "An Essay on Criticism," the paper identifies three qualities Dryden associates with excellent literature — purpose, comprehensibility, and wit expressed in clear language — and contrasts them with Pope's emphasis on subjective purpose over universal appeal. Together, the two critics illuminate an ongoing debate about whether great literary writing must speak to all readers universally or may legitimately serve a narrower, more selective audience.
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The paper models close reading of primary critical essays: it extracts specific passages, paraphrases Dryden's and Pope's arguments in student language, and then builds interpretive claims on top of those quotations. This technique — quote, paraphrase, interpret — is the foundational move in literary analysis at the undergraduate level.
The paper opens with a thesis-driven introduction identifying Dryden's three criteria for good writing. Two body paragraphs develop Dryden's argument using evidence from "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," while a third paragraph shifts to Pope and explicitly compares his position. A brief concluding paragraph synthesizes both critics' views on the relationship between purpose and literary quality.
John Dryden, the English poet and critic well known for his political and religious poetry, explicates on the nature of good writing in his essay "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy." In this discourse, Dryden examines the qualities that best define good writing in literature. For Dryden, a literary work is created through three important elements: the work must have a purpose, it must convey a message that is comprehensible to the reader, and it must be expressed with wit and intelligence in the simplest and most accessible language possible.
For Dryden, works of literature must be created for a purpose — an honest purpose with strong effectiveness — not literary works written solely for the writer's own benefit. This kind of writer, whom Dryden identifies with "the first sort of poetry" — that is, good poetry — is synonymous with the writer who is "...so much a well-willer to the satire that he spares no man ... And ... ought to be punished for his action ..." The strong influence of the good writer's work is readily contrasted with the uninspiring work of the bad writer, who is characterized as one who "... affects plainness, to cover his want of imagination ... The highest flight of his fancy is some miserable antithesis ..."
It is equally important that the message of the poem be clear yet thought-provoking for the reader, and this can be achieved by using what Dryden terms "easy language." These qualities are reflected in his discussion of the comprehensibility and thought-provoking nature of good literary works: "A thing well said will be wit in all languages; and though it may lose something in the translation, yet to him who reads it in the original, 'tis still the same: he has an idea of excellency ... though it cannot be rendered in our language, yet leaves an impression on our souls ..." In sum, the universality of the writer's literary work marks the pivotal point at which he or she has become a good writer. This idea of universality is a defining feature of Augustan literary criticism more broadly.
As exemplified in Dryden's "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," the great English poet and critic regards literary criticism as a form of exercise in which writers are given a guideline on what their purpose should be when creating a literary piece. For Dryden, literary criticism attempts to create meaning within the writer's work; any literary work devoid of meaning — one that lacks the universal appeal Dryden describes — is considered bad writing, and its author a bad writer. The most beneficial kind of literary criticism resembles an important piece of literature in this respect: it must have a well-defined purpose and a universality of message and language that individuals of any culture can readily identify with and understand.
As both Dryden and Pope demonstrate, the most beneficial kind of literary criticism shares an important quality with great literature itself: it must have a well-defined purpose. Where Dryden extends this requirement to insist on universality of message and language, Pope is content to allow for subjectivity provided that purposefulness remains central. Together, these two Augustan critics offer complementary frameworks for evaluating both creative writing and the criticism written about it — frameworks that remain foundational to the study of English literary history.
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