"First Follow Nature": Strategy and Stratification in "An Essay on Criticism" Author(s): John M.

Aden Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct., 1956), pp. 604617 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27706828 . Accessed: 13/03/2013 12:21
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"FIRST

FOLLOW

NATURE":

STRATEGY

AND

STRATI

FICATION IN AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM

what said of the star could, mutatis mutandis, be said Shakespeare in the first part of the Essay on Criti of the famous lines on Nature the passage is "an ever fixed mark" to scholarly navi cism. Although of the period, its worth would seem unknown because its depth gators has not been taken.1
First follow Nature, and your judgment frame

By her just standard, which is still the same: still divinely bright, Unerring Nature,
and universal One clear, unchanged, light, must to all impart, force, and beauty, Life, At once the source, and end, and test of Art.

"Art," the poet adds, "from that fund each just supply provides."2 The effect of the passage is to assert and underscore the primacy of in the art formula. The concept that it expresses Nature is central, to recognize that Pope defines that centrality by and it is important means of strategically massed auxiliaries to the plain statement. This or "composite as it has been called,3 pro "stratification" activity," vides not only a token of Pope's early mastery of the multilayered but also a means of gauging the relative doctrinal text, importance of this and another passage in the Essay which has been allowed unduly to compete with it, namely, the "grace beyond the reach of art." The in one key to the matter will be found to lie in the way Pope masses instance a complex of strategic devices which he refrains from in the other: devices of rhetoric, antithesis (tension), rhythm, ambiguity, of this texture and this allusion, imagery, and symbolism. Awareness as differentiation should help to vindicate the ways of Pope to Nature, well as attest the early ripeness of his art.
1The on Criticism itself has had few studies devoted to it.William Essay exclusively on Criticism," "Wit in the Essay has an article, in The Structure Empson reprinted of a brilliant short essay on the (London, 1951); and Maynard Mack, Complex Words to his edition of The Augustans poem as a part of the Introduction (English Master or dealt with chapter it is glanced at, annotated, 1950). Of course, pieces, New York, sources. wise in all the standard 2 from Pope are from The Best of Pope, ed. George Sherburn Quotations (New York, 1940). 8 "Stratification" are Geoffrey and "composite terms Tillotson's activity" (see to this characteristic, On the Poetry of Pope [Oxford, 1950]). For other terms applied " :Some Observations see Maynard on his Imagery," 'Wit and Poetry and Pope' Mack, in Pope and his Contemporaries, and Louis A. Landa ed. James L. Clifford (Oxford, 1949), PP. 20-21.

6o4

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Strategy

and Stratification

in "An Essay

on Criticism"

605

readers the poem as a whole exhib To Pope's eighteenth-century to indifference ited, it would be vain to deny, a certain Horatian method.4 On the other hand, Pope himself told Spence that he "had in prose" before he began to write the poem,5 digested all the matter, be inferred that more went into the organization from which it may of the eyes of his sometimes the Essay than met jaundiced contempo raries.6 At any rate, even at the risk of proving Dr. Johnson's suspicions in such a poem] that "for the order in which they [the propositions it be, a little ingenuity may easily give a reason,"7 whatever stand, that the position of the "follow Nature" passage is but in fact deliberate and strategic. it is Indeed, the whole first that, far from being unorganized, is more to the part of the poem is very carefully ordered and?what around the "follow Nature" its parts are distributed pas point?that it is demonstrable not adventitious, to show possible
sage as a center.

The structural design of Part I is rhetorical, following the pattern of a classical oration. The poem opens with an exordium (11. 1-8), the subject and ap the reader's receptivity by broaching preparing pealing to his sense of tact:
'Tis hard Appear to say, in writing want if greater or in judging of ill skill . . .

This is followed by a narratio, or statement the problem is put specifically:

Some Turned Some As have Critics neither mules at first for Wits, and next, can for Wits are neither

of facts
then Poets

(11. 9-45),
past, at

in which

proved plain nor Critics horse nor

fools pass. ass.

last.

heavy

form an egressio, or digression: Those lines which follow (11. 46-67) in them Pope leads up by subtle suggestion to the main statement, the hence burden) of the whole poem: "First follow Na (and proposition the critic to assess carefully his ture." In the egressio Pope admonishes that Nature has so ordered things that "One science powers, explaining
4 See "Reflections and Satirical Critical 253; Dennis, Addison, Spectator, No. upon a late Rhapsody call'd an Essay upon Criticism" (in Critical Works of John Dennis, Lives of the Poets, ed. Birkbeck ed. E. N. Hooker Hill [Baltimore, 1939-43]); Johnson, The Works (Oxford, 1905), in, 99; Warton, of Alexander Pope 1797), 1, i74n. (London, 6 ed. S. W. Singer (London, 1820), p. 142. Anecdotes, 8Addison a damned Dennis with faint praise, scowled with "tremendous, that "not One Gentleman in three eye." See above, n. 4. Pope wrote Caryll threat'ning can understand" score even of a Liberall Education the Essay. (Letter of 19 July 1711 : ed. Elwin-Courthope, Works vr, 152.) London, 1871-88, Pope, of Alexander 7 in, 99. Lives,

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only will one genius fit." It is but a step from this to the propositio. The proposition itself is followed by verification (confirmatio), con ducted both by enthymeme and paradigm, demonstrating the identity, first of the rules and then of the ancients, with Nature (11. 89-140) :
Those Are Hear When But Nature Rules Nature how of old still, learned not devised, discovered, . . . but Nature methodised Greece and when every were, her useful indulge part he he found, rules our indites, flights . . .

to repress, when t'examine and Homer

came, the same.

(11. 141-68) may be re "grace beyond the reach of art" passage as a resumption, of the proposition; of definition, but by way garded of its significance more will be said later. Meanwhile, Part I concludes with a peroration 11. 181-200), in (11. 169 ff., but more particularly those ancients who, he has shown, are one which the poet eulogizes of his proposition. with the Nature of classical such a formula of presentation, the disposilio That was likely for Pope is inferable, if there were not the evidence rhetoric, of a traditional use of the forms and principles of oratory in poetry,8 towards the end of the poem: from the reference to Quintilian The
In grave The Quintilian's rules, and justest copious clearest we work, method find joined . . . 9

Whatever

may be said of the last two parts of the poem (and the seem valid enough there), it is clear that charges of want of method Pope designed his first part, that he did so on the analogy of the classi cal oration, and that in so doing he conferred peculiar emphasis upon the "follow Nature" passage. Strategic location is the first step in dig nifying the key passage. But rhetoric is also employed in a tensional framework which con on a subtler and more complicated ducts the strategy level. It will be involves noted that the structure of the passage three contending
orders of organization: rhyme scheme, grammar, and rhetorical pat

tern. It is the tension set up by the pull of these various modes which gives the passage so much of its vitality.

structural

8 See C. S. Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic (New York, Baldwin, 1924) and Medieval and Poetic Rhetoric ed. (New York, Theory and Practice, 1928); Renaissance Literary D. L. Clark (New York, 1929). 9LI. Institutes, iv, v. 669-70. Cf. Quintilian,

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Strategy

and Stratification

in "An Essay

on Criticism"

607

the passage breaks into two unequal divisions of Grammatically two and four lines each, separated by the colon. It is doubtful, how the grammatical mode has ever been felt to control the ever, whether The reason lies partly in the countertensions of rhyme scheme passage. and rhetorical patterning, but also in a syntactical factor which oper ates simultaneously with them. This factor introduces its own tension within four: the larger tensions surrounding it. It involves lines three and

Unerring Nature,
One clear, unchanged,

still divinely bright,

and universal light . . .

These lines exhibit a peculiar poise or ambiguity in their relation to those surrounding them. In the language of modern grammar, they tend to "squint," that is, to look two ways. While they are actually the in line five, they tend to read at first like an subject of a predicate to the subject in line one. The result is that a sensitive appositive reader finds himself unexpectedly engaged in adjusting his response. this the poet gains an obvious advantage: his reader cannot simply By skim the passage inattentively, but is forced to do some thinking. But an even greater advantage of this particular structural ambiguity lies in the fact that, although unre it is challenging, it is artistically solvable. Both ways of reading are so intrinsically attractive that one to commit himself finally to either, grammar notwith is reluctant in standing. He is, as one suspects Pope intended him to be, fascinated like the old sense, and yields to the attraction of two equally something The important point is that, by the device, the tempting possibilities. passage is lifted out of the merely grammatical plane and contrived into something poetically As a method it is characteristic engaging. of Pope, who, when he has anything of first importance to say, likes to tease his reader, not out of thought, but into it. Otherwise, as will be seen, he says what he has to say, gracefully to be sure, but quite simply. But grammatical order is also challenged by the rhyme scheme, which exerts a pull in the direction of couplet control, dividing the pas this mode sage into three equal parts of two lines each. Normally would dominate, and grammar would accommodate to it (compare, for example, the first eight lines of the poem) ;but since grammar here defies couplet confinement, the rhyme scheme is itself challenged by the grammatical form, and both of them, in turn, by still a third mode, that of rhetorical pattern. According to it, the inequality of parts ir

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the grammatical scheme is partially by another kind of displaced as in the case of rhyme, between equality, and tension is generated, The rhetorical division breaks symmetry and asymmetry. contending the six lines of the passage into two equal units of three lines each, with contrasting phrasal formulas. The first three lines are cast in the form most characteristic of Pope, the more or less balanced two-part The last three, on the other hand, are organized on a pattern rela line.
tively rare in Pope, the more or less balanced three-part line.10 Com

pare the first line of each ternary:

First One follow clear, Nature, unchanged, and your judgment light. frame

and

universal

Besides
such

the tensional
simultaneous advantage

emphasis
in

(the 2-4, 2-2, 3-3 orientations)

of grammar, other prosody, ways. The and mere several

which
rhetoric varia

introduces,

maneuvering accrues

tion helps sustain interest. And the pleasure in balance and antithesis which the couplet still affords the readers of Pope is given here a new to groups of three lines. Finally, the progres dimension by extension sion from duple to triple phrasing (momentary increase in tempo) and the accentual gain in the repetitive three-part structure lend the pas added vigor. From "Unerring Nature, still divinely bright" the sage in "One clear, unchanged, is fleetingly accelerated and univer timing sal light," settling again into a new, slower and more deliberate induced by the natural stress of the three-part movement. rhythm, This recovery of deliberate pace in rhythm is made decisive by the restoration of conjunctions in the last line, omitted in the partly asyn detic verses immediately preceding:
At once the source, and end, and test of Art.

in which subtle stresses are By this kind of structural counterpoint, off against intricate balances, the poet renders the key passage played on the level of its ordering and marks it out as special. provocative The anticipation to Pope's of rhythm is probably not unrelated two or more effects at once. At any rate, the habit of manipulating rhythm here appears to interact with the rhetorical ordering in a way to the powerful accents of that suggests collaboration in the march the last line. It will be necessary to scan.
10 In the 744 lines of the poem the triplicate in this passage) instances only ten times. structure appears (including the three

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Strategy

and Stratification
First follow just Nature, standard,

in "An Essay
and which your

on Criticism"
frame same:

609

judgment the

By

her

is still

still divinely bright, Nature, Unerring /v-'/v-'/ / // ./v-' and universal One clear, unchanged, light, Life, At force, once the and beauty, arid must end, fo all and impart, of Art.

source,

test

Doubtless this reading will invite some dissent, but disagreement should be slight and need not affect the thesis that the rhythm is part of Pope's strategy of dignifying the passage. The passage begins on a strong rhythmical basis with an accented first syllable, catching the attention which the rhetoric will help to sustain and make vivid.11 Admittedly, follow is normally a trochee? and may be effectively read so here?yet for the there is a tendency its normal stress and reduce it explosive quality of First to diminish to a pyrrhic. In this way, besides the fact that First and Nature, two the contrast, statement the opening key words, profit by acquires like the force of fiat, as distinct from the less compelling something or advice, which the other reading suggests. exhortation the pyrrhic in the third foot, it could be argued that Pope Against two equally important is enjoining charges on the reader and hence that and should take stress; but since follow plainly embraces the in the second half of the line, it appears more idea expressed likely that Pope is urging only one charge and that the second half of the line represents not addition. The advantage of reading elaboration, the line as it is scanned here (with the second half of the line acquir ing the effect of an anapest followed by an iamb) is twofold: the ac
cent on frame, another key word, is by contrast made stronger; and,

as is almost certainly the case in the following line, the anapestic ef fect helps meliorate the symmetry of the two-part line. The regularity of the third line provides a kind of rhythmical signal of the rhetorical division
The

of the passage
second ternary,

at that point.12
which picks up momentum, recovers stress,

and leads to the climax, opens with an appropriate cue: rhythmical two spondees. The critical word is unchanged, wThich, though normally iambic, is here surely spondaic, since it is the negative prefix which
examination of the first sixty-seven lines of the poem will show no unusual either in single The lines or in groupings. exordium rhythmical (11. characteristics, in line 1-8) is almost entirely regular, admitting only two feet not iambic, a spondee one in line six. Narratio three and and egressio (11. 9-67) exhibit normal variation. 12 has an echo in that of the third line of the second too, that its regularity Note, as will appear. ternary. But the lines are not therefore rhythmically equivalent, 11 An

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Aden

carries the burden of Pope's point.13 Rhetorically these spondees serve to introduce the pomp which characterizes the second ternary. In the next to last line, the spondaic movement is resumed in the first foot, as it were, after which the line falls into regular iambs, preparatory, for the grand march of the closing line. Before going on to the last line, it is important to note several things about the first five. So far only one has been regularly iambic and it, as was seen, concluded the first ternary and pro throughout, vided by its regularity a divisive effect supporting that of the rhetori cal shift. However else the other lines may be read, they cannot be read as no two lines have so far been alike, a regular. In fact, rhythmically in a comparable number of lines in the feature which is not duplicated of the poem. Besides first part these rhythmical there are features, several of a prosodie nature which deserve notice. There is the asyn deton in the first part of the fourth and fifth lines, a syntactical feature partly responsible for the spondees there. And there is the fact that up to this point no line has been without polysyllables, though line two has only one. Again, up to this point accents have been allowed to fall to upon almost every part of speech, even, according indiscriminately some ways of reading, upon conjunctions. is noteworthy it Finally, that every line up to the last contains a medial pause, occurring after the fifth syllable in the first three verses and the fifth, and after the fourth syllable in the fourth verse. To all of this the last line stands in sharp, dramatic contrast. It is in the first place entirely regular, that is, iambic.14 It is lacking in ac such accidental features as asyndeton, is entirely monosyllabic, on one part of speech only (nouns), and is quite cented throughout singular in the handling of pause. As for the latter point, the line may be said to have three pauses, one after the fourth, the sixth, and the eighth syllables. This is a satisfactory reading and has the advantage of throwing each of the three aspects of Nature's relation to art into relief. However, another reading is possible and may indeed be prefer able. That is to read the line with five identical time intervals, or, in
13 This of consistency, raises a question since the negative is prefix of Unerring in the scansion. The accented is that in common usage un simplest explanation on the first syllable, whereas often is. Possibly the erring is rarely accented unchanged in number of syllables is a factor, also the position difference in the line. One may of course simply have to appeal to ear. 14 in this respect is the line not strictly unique, Only since, as has been seen, line three is also regular. Even for regarding the last line as so, there is some justification distinctive: alike nor timed structured though both lines are iambic, they are neither not alike.

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Strategy

and Stratification

in "An Essay

on Criticism"

6n

effect, with no pause at all in the strict sense. The sweep which the But in either case, line acquires thereby is a strong recommendation. there is a distinct departure from the caesural pattern of the first five in this lines. The prosodie and rhythmical differentiation represented reinforces the climactic character of the line and last line brilliantly accents. Such the powerful, insistent march of its anticipated heightens a line in such a context is scarcely to be paralleled in Pope, certainly not in this poem. Its presence here, in this crucial position, is addi of tional witness of the conviction with which Pope felt the authority
Nature.

Where rhetoric, rhythm, and prosody function in close collabora tion to signal the importance of the key passage, ambiguity, allusion, imagery, and symbolism function in similar concert to enrich its mean is especially active, both in the strict sense and in ing. Ambiguity which will be noted later. Pope establishes various mutations the in the opening word, just as he did in the case of his mode immediately, strategy. First not only commands attention by its accent, rhythmical but trips the lever of multiple meaning with a significant paronomasia, The artist and critic expressing not only "order" but "importance." are to follow Nature not only first of all but foremost of all.15 First in this manner becomes a paradox, both Alpha and Omega. As a paradox, a characteristic it illustrates of Pope's ambiguity which moreover, does not appear to have been much recognized. That is that Pope's ambiguity not only serves to enrich meaning and set up paradoxes and tensions which give his poetry tone and depth, but frequently serves in
a prudential or strategic capacity as well. In other words, his am

a net does more than complicate texture; it contrives biguity which safeguards his intention against being bypassed. In the case of often
First, row for example, The the double meaning cannot merely forestalls assume any escape and via a nar thereby univocacy. reader "order"

He must (if he is conscientious) miss or ignore "importance." or none of it.16Most of Pope's meaning of Pope's ambiguities this strategy. passage exploit

take all in this

15 For the words in connection see the OED. All con discussed with ambiguity, clusions drawn in the text have been confirmed in that source. Considerations of space make it impractical to include separate citations here. 16 An obvious objection must be met here?that since Pope could hardly have used another word for First, the suppositions drawn are gratuitous. The argument is not un answerable. It is true that he could not have used another word for First, but he could have used another word instead of it. It would have been al easily, and consistently, in keeping with the sense of the lines immediately for him to have together preceding "Then follow Nature ..." said, for instance,

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Ambiguity plays in a similar way about follow and still. To follow Nature is both to pursue it as a goal and to imitate it: to seek it out it is implied, it is worth seeking; and, when it is found, to because, imitate it. There is even the idea of discipleship suggested. To say, in the next place, that Nature's standard is still the same is to say at least two rather important things about it: that it is "yet" (now as the same?that that it has lost none of is, by implication, formerly) its original virtue; and second, that it is "always," hence always will be, the same, and thus always dependable. Divinely, Life, force, and beauty, if not strictly ambiguous, produce effects. Their richness of connotation, hardly less valuable prismatic like the ambiguity of the earlier terms, contributes to the enhancement of the total statement while at the same time safeguarding the in tegrity (entirety) of the poet's meaning. How this works in the case of in a mo divinely we shall have occasion to notice more particularly
ment.

In keeping with the climactic ordering of the passage through rhe toric and rhythm, ambiguity also moves towards a culmination in the last line, where the density is augmented by the close juxtaposition terms. Nature, of several ambiguous the line asserts, is at once the source of art, the end of art, and the test of art. Each of the first four nouns of the line sets into motion a concentric expansion of relevancies to the needs of the argument. At once, which that is finely adapted sends a faint echo to the First of line one, expresses in addition to the idea of "at one and the same time," the notion of immediateness {i.e., Nature fulfills without delay the needs of art), and may even be in tended to call to mind the harmony denoted by a similar expression?
"at one"?suggesting that Nature and art are at one, or in accord, in

the best realization. As the source of art, Nature becomes not only the subject-matter, in an important of art. sense, the begetter but, Art is from Nature and is about Nature. As the end of art, Nature be comes both referent (that towards which art strives in its representa
tion; compare one sense of source) and art's utmost reach, with the

of outer boundary, additional suggestion beyond which art defeats itself by transgressing. Finally, as the test of art, Nature becomes both criterion and proof (Latin, probare), i.e., that which art (standard) as the Ulysses tries itself against, by which it can prove itself?Nature bow by which the true artist ismade known. Still other meanings may attach to the terms: source suggesting wellspring and supply; end final or evidence. test witness, It point or goal and purpose; testimony

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Strategy would

and Stratification

in "An Essay

on Criticism"

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in fact be difficult, perhaps impossible, to exhaust the meanings latent in the words, nor would it serve Pope's full purpose to attempt to do so, since part of the strategy of the ambiguity is to magnify the subject and make it seem illimitable in its importance. As it is, by the grasp exhibited here, especially as it concentrates type of ambiguous to compass in the last line, Pope enables his Nature itself strategically
of vast eternity in art.17

deserts

of simultaneous is perhaps most dramati activity Pope's mastery of allusion in the passage, which in his management cally illustrated at one point and into shades off from both rhetoric and ambiguity at the other, all the while retaining an identity and symbol metaphor of its own. Attention has been called to the tripartite structure of the last three lines in the passage, how they function to produce what may be called an external token (rhythm, accent) of the importance of the passage. The lines also function to generate an allusive mode (akin to the ambiguity) based on their structure and statement. Nature is as central to the artistic universe and as possessing all being posited It is even described the ultimate virtues. in a somewhat ambiguous as divine ("divinely bright"). In the last three lines it is further way
described in a series of triune aspects: "clear, unchanged, and univer

"At once the source, and sal"; imparting "Life, force, and beauty"; and test of Art." It is difficult not to see in all this an allusion of end, and the doc formidable persuasiveness?an allusion to the Godhead trine of the Trinity.18 is the source of all is divine, and, like the Deity, Pope's Nature In its oneness "At once") it resembles the perfect things. (compare of the Godhead; in its triplicity, the threefold God of the Unity has a threefold being (source and end Trinity. Thus, Pope's Nature and test), a threefold of life, force, and function (the imparting and threefold attributes and universal). (clear, unchanged, beauty), Such an allusion is in keeping with all we know about Pope's habits
17 is ambiguous; Of course, the key word but to go into that is to itself, Nature, the history of an idea and is beyond the scope of this paper. See A. O. Love attempt " xlii 'Nature* as Aesthetic joy, Norm," MLN, (1927), 444-50. 18 an inter in the Introduction to The Augustans Mack, (see above, n. 1), broaches to this. He not dissimilar stresses Pope's with pretation preoccupation "Corporate ... to a community, ness . . . the relation of the individual a One" (p. 20). He relates the concept, to the Platonic One and Many, however, though he does state that the sun imagery is "associated with Grace? closely resembling something by implication a Universal does not mention the from a Logos, emanating Light" (p. 23). Mack seems to be no reason why both analogies may not have been present to There Trinity. Pope.

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and circumstances. We know that he exhibits a certain tendency to "deify" things which he feels strongly about,19 that even as a bad Catholic he would be intimately of the conscious of the doctrine and that, as a flirter with deism, he would find more than Trinity, as divine. But one need not for regarding Nature orthodox precedent turn to external evidence. The Essay on Criticism is shot through with theological analogy and allusion to Church history,20 not always of a reverential character, sometimes in obvious parody of Milton, but with such frequency that it becomes apparent that the religious analogy is never far from his mind. In this particular instance he had but to sense the opportunity, draw the analogy allusively rather than ex reasons of discretion as well as of art), and clinch "this (for plicitly for the total efficacy of Nature great Argument" by hinting its affinity with the perfect, of the Godhead. inclusive, tripartite unity Pope's career may not give much evidence of his respect for the Faith, but to avail himself of its prestige it everywhere evinces his willingness to which it lends value. Here it is subtly enlisted in behalf of Nature, and authority. great dignity We have already seen how this allusion emerged organically out
of a process of statement and structure. Out of it, in turn, are gen

erated
of course,

two further
always

stages of meaning,
has something of

metaphor
the character

and symbol. Allusion,

of metaphor: the re

call is a form of implied comparison. Here, for instance, Pope is not only securing prestige for his Nature by speaking of it in terms sugges tive of the Trinity, but he is also saying in effect that Nature is God? God, that is, in the world of Art, which for Pope is as much as to say he has made a bold claim. very God of very God. Metaphorically he is to make an even bolder. For if we look closely we Symbolically can perceive that he has really gone a step further and made of God a It is an audacious symbol of Nature. symbol, worthy of Pope at his maturest. From it we perceive that, in the final analysis, Pope is using the idea of God, not simply to add luster to Nature, but to signify it. A lesser poet would have stopped at metaphor, would have raised a to the skies; Pope drew an angel down. mortal But it is not enough to insist upon the importance of Nature; it is necessary also to define it. For this purpose Pope relies chiefly upon
19Cf. Cleanth "The Case of Miss Arabella Fermor: A Re-Examination," Brooks, li (1943), 505-24, Sewanee Review, and Rebecca P. Parkin, in Activity "Mythopoeic the Rape of the Lock" ELH, xxi (1954), 30-38. 20Cf. other loci in the 11. 13, 80, 342-43, poem employing theological analogy: 396, 440-44, 398, 428-29, 446-47, 625, 691, 692. 484-87(?),

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Strategy

and Stratification

in "An Essay

on Criticism"

615

imagery, though the approach here is as poised, as free from unilateral as elsewhere. Part of the definition, for example, is ac procedure, in the allusion; and imagery, as will be seen, plays back complished as a "light." From this basic into allusion. Pope describes Nature as opposed to extensional or substan image is inferred its qualitative tial character. Nature is not, in other words, external nature. Also, by to perceive the ambiguity of light as an image, it is possible that Nature addresses itself not to the sensual ear but to the understanding. Nature to make the heart is a light to light the way, not something for the imagination too, as the reference leap up. Still it has a meaning to "Life, force, and beauty" makes clear. Pope conceives Nature under another image in lines immediately following the key passage, where he compares it to an "informing soul" re which animates the body (art) : "Itself unseen, but in th'effects, mains." The soul image reaffirms the centrality asserted for Nature just above and supports the theological allusion by suggesting the idea of God as the soul of the universe. It also reinforces another aspect of the definition of Nature broached in the "follow Nature" passage, the idea of the transcendence of Nature. This idea is first namely, in the phrase "divinely it may be noted, suggested bright," which, and imagery with peculiarly Popean finesse. consolidates ambiguity The image is in the brightness, which is in turn localized by the notion of divinity in the modifier. A divine light may be at least two things: it may be a light from God or it may be a light situated in Godly re gions, for example, the sun. Of course, it may be both, and here un is. But in either case, Nature is something that shines from doubtedly of the imagery But the advantage transcendent. above, something is in more than its definition; like the ambiguity and allusiveness, it both by its simple conceptual reference and by its power to magnifies, attract associations. Nature is above not only in the sense that it is not mundane (physical), but also in its divine excellence, incorruptibility, etc. Also perhaps in the sense of its divine availability and efficacy, like the light of the sun or the grace of God. The narratio had prepared for this, for we are told there that critic and poet "alike from Heaven derive their light, / These born to judge, as well as those to write." The key passage itself is followed by several reassertions of the idea : "Heaven" is the source of wit in a line hard following (1. 80) and, a little later (11. 98-99), made that "learned Greece" drew the point is from her poets "what they derived from Heaven." Pope's tendency to "deify" subjects which he holds important has been seen in the allusion to Christian doctrine and in the hint of a

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6i6

Aden

closely related sun symbolism. The sun as symbol of deity has been noticed elsewhere in his poetry.21 In the Essay on Criticism the symbol, which embraces not alone the idea of deity as such but of deity as and impressive, and its persistence agent, is ubiquitous fructifying through much of the poem may be regarded as one way by which Pope in the "follow Nature" passage and reaffirms exploits its introduction the importance of the principle implied there.22 The strategy which we have just been examining is important not level of artistry in this poem and at only for its reflection of Pope's into the this stage of his career, but for the insight which it provides in this Essay and into Pope's concept of Na theory of art expressed ture generally. As for the theory of art here expressed, it becomes the first in a series of neoclassical is not merely apparent that Nature "ne'er so well expressed," but a living principle and commonplaces to which Pope shows his devotion with his finest art. conviction,
Pope conceived of his Nature, moreover, as something more than a

a gift from the ancients, the first affirmative in the fine platitude, of art. To the concept of Nature Pope brings more forcibly than primer ever before in the arts of poetry the idea of divinity, with all that that is the God of Art in the implies of efficacy and sufficiency. Nature world of Pope. And he is a jealous God. literary We may now turn to the other passage which this paper proposed to examine, a passage justly recognized as having an important bear
ing on Pope's theory of art. Art was for Pope, of course, not a matter of

brittle formulation, though it used to be popular to think so. That it failed to make clear to a involves an element of genius he apparently less hospitable generation with his lines on the "grace beyond the reach of art." That the lines failed to take is indicative of two things: one, they were never at the center of his theory in the first place; two, he did not, therefore, endow them with the kind of arresting poetic tex as ture which he lavished on the "follow Nature" passage. Important this later passage is?it has taken a friendly and scholarly generation cannot be thought of as enjoying the same doc to rediscover it?it trinal status as the earlier. One token of this is the absence in it of the in the earlier passage. and activity present Space does not density the passage in detail, but enough can be permit quoting and analyzing
said to set the interested reader on the path of personal confirmation.

He will

look in vain here for rhetorical maneuver,

special
315-17,

rhythmi

21 See above, n. 19. 22 See the lines and passages: following 466-73, 563, 659. (compare 392-93),

58-59,

195-96,

209-12;

398-405

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Strategy

and Stratification

in uAn Essay

on Criticism"

617

cal or prosodie effects, ambiguity,23 or symbolism. Genuine imagery is barely present in "snatch a grace" and "gains the heart." Only plain conventional allusion and comparison relieve metaphor, (Pegasus), the statement of the passage by way of device. Except for the felicity of phrasing (and Pope is not going to write poorly to make a point), the passage
the earlier

is relatively
one. In

unimpressive,
to the

and suffers by comparison

climactic arrangement,

with

contrast

vigorous

and compact self-sufficiency of the earlier passage, this one activity, is anticlimactic, that it tends to lose its force prosaic, and so tentative before it is half concluded. Instead of a steady march to climax, one finds a proposition and undercut by hesitancy, gradually diminished proviso, and even outright caveat. Before the passage is out, one begins to suspect that Pope's heart is not wholly in the matter. It has been seen that whatever Pope holds of prime importance he is apt to sur round with the prismatic agents of ambiguity, imagery, and the like. There is little of that sort of thing here. Plain statement dominates, and as it does belies the interpretation which would regard the pas
sage as the clarion of Longinian emancipation.

For Pope the idea of the "grace" was important, but it was some thing he took for granted, not a banner under which he crusaded. This ismanifest from the way in which the plain statement usurps control, the idea about with anxious qualifications. is admis License hemming sible "where the rules not far enough extend"; it may become a rule {i.e., may be acceptable) only when it answers "to the full / Th' intent . . . "; it is made allowable in the ancients proposed (since primarily first realized Nature are to "beware" and in the rules); moderns they to employ it "seldom," only when "compelled by need." Finally, there is this significant note: "... if you must offend / Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end." That is to say, license does not extend to the of Nature, which stands exempt from all deviation.24 contradicting Grace is but one of its Pope's creed begins and ends in Nature. like the rules, the ancients, wit and judgment. For this we articles, have the evidence of the monument which he raised to it in "First follow Nature." John M. Vanderbilt University Aden

23Even our can find but one ambiguity Mr. Empson, respected "Ambiguographer," in the passage, and that is not very convincing. See his essay on wit referred to in n. i, above. 24 in the original of the poem, later omitted: "But care in too, this couplet Note, still be had; / It asks discretion ev'n in running mad." The couplet poetry must ap 1. 158 of the present text. See Works, peared following 11, 43, n. 5.

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