We have all heard common idioms or phrases and, for some of us, we often use them daily. We may not know how the phrase originated or the history behind it, but it fits well into our daily conversations. While I’ve had this idea of sharing the back stories for these phrases for a little while now, I have finally decided that now was the perfect time to share this unusual knowledge. And what a better saying than…
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Often misquoted as “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” this proverb refers to how a small amount of knowledge can mislead individuals into thinking they are more experienced than they really are. Its origin begins in the earlier half of the 18th century by one of the time’s leading neoclassical, or Augustan poets, Alexander Pope.
Pope was a different type of fellow. From a young age, Pope suffered from ill health for most of his life, starting with tuberculosis of the bone. Due to his shortened stature and health-related problems, he was able to support himself as a translator and writer. He would often speak out and criticize others when he did not agree with them, which in turn led to losing close friends and creating enemies. He was expelled from Twyford School as a young boy after being caught writing a satire about one of his teachers. At one time, he feared he would be attacked by vicious rivals and rarely left his house without his Great Dane, Bounce, and brandishing pistols.
Now, the proverb was in one of Pope’s greatest poems, An Essay on Criticism, published in 1711. This piece of literary work also gave us such great lines as “to err is human; to forgive, divine” and “for fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” What is even more impressive is all three of those proverbial statements came from one poem, which was written when Pope was only 23 years old. An Essay on Criticism was Pope’s way of calling out literary critics, believing critics think they know it all when they, in fact, know very little. While the wording can lead one to think that learning itself is dangerous, this is not the way Pope intended it to sound.
Pope wrote other notable literary classics such as The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, Moral Essays and An Essay on Man. Pope never married and passed away at the age of 56 from dropsy and acute asthma on May 30, 1744.
