his critique on Pope — In “The Poetry of Pope” (1848), DeQuincey
wrote:
In that great social organ which, collectively, we call literature, there
may be distinguished two separate offices, that may blend and often
do so,
but capable, severally, of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for
reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of
knowledge, and, secondly, the literature of power. The
function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is
to move: the first is a rudder; the second an oar or a sail.
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