From which poem are the following lines extracted?
“Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools. In search of wit these lose their common sense, And then turn critics in their own defense”

The correct option is An Essay on Criticism.

An Essay on Criticism is one of the most famous poems written by the English poet Alexander Pope, first published in 1711. Written in heroic couplets, it is a masterclass in literary criticism and a critique of the critics of his time. The extracted lines appear in Part I of the poem, where Pope discusses the natural capacity required for criticism and the common errors made by aspiring critics.

Here is a step-by-step breakdown of the meaning behind these lines:
• “Some are bewildered in the maze of schools,”: Pope points out that many aspiring writers and critics get lost or confused (“bewildered”) in the complicated theories, rigid rules, and differing academic dogmas (“maze of schools”) of literature.
• “And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools.”: A “coxcomb” is a foolishly conceited or showy person. Pope is saying that while nature intended these people to be simple, harmless fools, their exposure to pedantic learning turns them into arrogant, vain pretenders of intellect.
• “In search of wit these lose their common sense,”: In their desperate attempt to show cleverness and intellectual superiority (“wit”), they abandon their basic, practical judgment and logical reasoning (“common sense”).
• “And then turn critics in their own defense”: Finally, because they fail as creative writers or original thinkers, they turn to criticizing the work of others as a psychological defense mechanism to shield their own intellectual shortcomings.

Thus, the lines illustrate Pope's view that bad critics are often failed writers who have traded their natural common sense for pretentious, convoluted academic theories.