• The problem: "'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none/ Go just alike, yet each believes his own." Judgments are partial, and true taste is as rare as true genius (9-35). Some critics go astray through false learning, others through envy of wit (19-45). Self-awareness is therefore a crucial quality for a critic (46-67): "Be sure yourself and your own reach you know."
• First solution: "First follow Nature" (68-87). (Nature here means something like "the universe as God created it" or "that which is permanently true.")
• Second solution: learn the "rules of old," i.e. the precepts of poetry and criticism set down by the classical Greek and Roman authors or deducible from their literature (88-140). Take care, however, not to follow the rules slavishly, but rather "know well each ancient's proper character," especially Homer.
• One reason to be flexible in applying the rules: there are "beauties yet no precepts can declare." Great writers can break the rules successfully (141-180). Modern poets should take care, however, that if they break a rule they should "ne'er transgress its end" (161-169).

Part 2. This section identifies the main flaws a critic is prone to, and therefore the greatest obstacles to good criticism.

• The biggest pitfall, in criticism as in just about everything else: pride (201-214).
• Flaw #2: "little learning" (215-232). A little learning makes critics susceptible to pride, by making them think they know more than they do. (Pope is not praising ignorance here; the cure for the pride of little learning is more learning, which teaches the scholar how little he or she knows.)
• #3: "a love to parts"--i.e. emphasizing one aspect of a poem at the expense of all others (233-383). A critic SHOULD, instead, "read each work of wit/With the same spirit that its author writ"; "Survey the whole" and "regard the writer's end" (233-252).
  • an absurd example of "a love to parts": for Don Quixote, a poem is no good unless it has a combat in it (267-284).
  • part #1: conceit (elaborate, clever tropes) (289-304).
  • part #2: eloquence of language (305-337), as opposed to the ideas the language is supposed to express. One example: archaic language (324-336).
  • part #3: "numbers," i.e. meter (337-384). Included in the section is a dazzling display of metrical craft--note how the lines exemplify what they're talking about.
• #4: love of extremes (384-393)
• #5: liking only "one small sect," e.g. foreign writers, British author, ancients, or moderns, as opposed to approving of merit wherever it is found (394-407).
• #6:judging authors according to the opinions of others rather than the merit of the work (408-424). E.g.:
  • judging the name rather than the work (412-413).
  • worst case: judging the work on the basis of social rank (414-424).
• #7: conversely, prizing novelty above everything else (424-451).
• #8: valuing only those works which agree with one's own point of view, are written by member of one's own party, are written by friends, etc. (452-473). Envy plays a big part here, says Pope.
• arising from the above, some premises: "Be thou the first true merit to defend," even though we cannot expect modern writers to endure as the ancients did (474-493).; don't let yourself succumb to envy (494-525). Be generous: "To err is human, to forgive divine."
• But DO scourge "provoking crimes" such as obscenity and blasphemy (526-555). Here too, however, one must take care not to "mistake an author into vice" (556-559).