1. Pope wrote “An Essay on Criticism” when he was 23; he was influenced by Quintillian, Aristotle, Horace’s Ars Poetica, and Nicolas Boileau’s L’Art Poëtique

2. ‘The writers of formal odes, Marvell and Dryden in particular, are also indebted to him and the critical writings of Dryden and the Augustans plainly reveal the influence of his Ars Poetica.’