The critical poem, a genre that blossomed during the Restoration, reached its zenith in the eighteenth century. This form, tracing its lineage back to Horace's Ars Poetica, experienced notable contributions across Europe. In Italy, Marco Girolamo Vida penned De arte poetica in 1527, while France saw Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux's L’Art poétique emerge in 1674. England, too, embraced this trend, with works from John Sheffield’s Essay on Poetry (1682), Wentworth Dillon’s Essay on Translated Verse (1684), and Lord Lansdowne’s Essay upon Unnatural Flights in Poetry (1701), all reflecting an escalating engagement with literary criticism and theory.

The pinnacle of this movement in England was Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (1711). This critical poem distilled the poetic standards of the eighteenth century, serving as both a guide on how to judge poetry and a meditation on the virtues necessary for critics. According to Pope, the foremost criterion for criticism was adherence to nature, followed by respect for the ancients who had "discov’red" and "Methodiz’d" its rules. In the Augustan context, the "laws of Nature" represented universal principles of conduct and thought, an idea related to what the French termed la belle nature. Pope argued that nature was "the source, and end, and test of Art," a statement reflecting the era's belief in universal human values.

Pope's poem is renowned for its encapsulation of neoclassical advice, offering aphorisms such as: “The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense,” and “Avoid Extreams,” which reflects the Augustan ideal of the golden mean. He also advised, “In all you speak, let Truth and Candor shine,” and suggested, “Men must be taught as if you taught them not.” Although the poem's strength lies in its succinct articulation of contemporary standards rather than in original thought, it cleverly captures the period's preference for memorable expression over novelty. Pope himself remarked that true wit is “What oft was Thought, but ne’er so well Exprest.” This sentiment was echoed by Addison in The Spectator, who contended that "wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known agreeable turn."