Pope and Nature

Billy Schraufnagel

English 125-8, Fayen

March 4, 2000

Pope Paper

The Proper Use of Nature

In much of his poetry, Alexander Pope seems to “pleasingly confound” (Moral Essay IV, 55) the reader by framing his true intentions in tight, witty couplets that often have several meanings. His “Essay on Criticism,” however, is marked by a much more explicit approach to relating his message. Pope clearly delineates his views on art, nature, and inspiration:

First follow Nature, and your Judgement frame

By her just Standard, which is still the same:

Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,

One clear, unchang’d, and Universal Light,

Life, Force, and Beauty, must to all impart.

At once the Source, and End, and Test of Art. (Essay on Criticism, 68-73)

These lines, as Pope’s understanding of his work as a writer, echo throughout all of his poetry and act as a reference point or backdrop upon which all the rest of his poetry may be read. They are presented here in full to provide an intellectual context for the later reading of a passage in Book IV of Pope’s “The Dunciad.”

First, however, we may discover a great deal about Pope’s philosophy of literature and his goals as a writer through close examination of the above lines. The passage focuses on Nature, as Pope believes all good literature should. The passage itself “follows Nature” even as it instructs the reader to do so. Pope’s next image is that of Nature as a “frame” or the universal “Standard” against which humanity is implicitly always shifting. In each of the following three lines, Pope blends three words that easily flow together and speak to each other and converge to a point: “clear, unchang’d, and Universal” converging on “light”; “Life, Force, and Beauty” converging on “to all”; and “the Source, and End, and Test” converging on “Art.” The rhetorical device serves to depict Nature as a unifying force. Linguistically, the word “Nature” is a culmination of adjectives, or an entity that can only be defined through multiple descriptions from different directions. In a broader and deeper sense, “Nature” joins “Life, Force, and Beauty” together and simultaneously with “Source, End, and Test.” The beginning of experience, the end of experience, and the content of experience– Source, End, and Test, or our entire existence– seem then somehow inextricably linked, through Pope’s couplet, with Life, Force, and Beauty. These latter three are perhaps fundamental units of Nature, according to Pope. The “Universal Light” is then an agent that “imparts” these units “to all” (including, one would assume, to the Poet).

Having described what Nature is, Pope proceeds to relate what Nature does:

Art from that Fund each just Supply provides,

Works without Show, and without Pomp presides:

In some fair Body thus th’informing Soul

With Spirits feeds, with Vigour fills the whole,

Each Motion guides, and ev’ry Nerve sustains;

It self unseen, but in th’ Effects remains. (Essay on Criticism, 74-79)

As guideposts in this passage, Pope gives us 7 verbs: provides, presides, feeds, fills, guides, sustains, and remains. “Provides” and “Presides” immediately evoke memory of “Source” and “End”; Nature is both the origin and the destination. As a judge, Nature “presides” over literature that it has been instrumental in creating. Notice also the contrast and compliment between the idea of Nature as a frame in the first passage and now “filling” and “feeding” that frame. Nature thus provides a structure (“Works” or “some fair Body”) through which and in which it fulfills itself. The implicit structure for Pope is literature, but possibly any form of artistic expression. The human artist simply provides a structure, for example Pope’s couplet, through which the “vigour” of Nature can be released– the “Effects” of Nature are to “guide” the poet’s “Motion” and “sustain” his “Nerve.” Finally, notice the interplay between the verbs “sustains” and “remains.” The second verb gives continuity and a sense of permanence to the first. However, because of the first verb, the permanence is one of constant rejuvenation and reaffirmation.

In some of his later poetry, Pope laments that this ideal of Nature’s working is not always present in actuality. In Book IV of his mock-epic poem “The Dunciad,” he presents an episode between two individuals who misrepresent the ideals outlined in “Essay on Criticism.” The florist spreads the “leaves” of his newly raised flower on “paper,” and the entomologist presents his butterfly to Queen Dullness on “paper.” The double use of the word paper suggests that Pope intends to associate the two figures with writing. Both the florist and the entomologist work with nature, and so would seem to appreciate its power in the Popian fashion.

The florist begins his address almost as a mock invocation to the Queen, an allegorical figure of dullness and poor writing: “Hear thy suppliant’s call, / Great Queen, and common Mother of us all!” (Dunciad IV, 403-4). As readers of the “Essay on Criticism,” we immediately sense the misplaced appeal– the proper artist should “First follow Nature,” not a Queen. The florist continues his anguished plea: “Fair from its humble bed, I rear’d this Flow’r, / Suckled, and chear’d, with air, and sun, and show’r” (405-406). With the words “from its humble bed,” Pope defends the flower’s origin, Nature, as pure and undefiled. By using the preposition “from,” however, Pope suggests a violation of this natural space by the florist, as if he snatches this token piece away from its rightful place.

The florist’s actions further the notion of his control and manipulation of the flower. The verbs “Rear’d, Suckled, and chear’d” are cut off from the nouns they relate to, “air, and sun, and show’r.” Contrast this linguistically with the verb-noun relationships in the “Essay”: “Spirits feeds,” “Vigour fills,” “Motion guides,” and “Nerve sustains.” The verbs, or the vital actions of the florist towards his flower, seem to exist lost in an isolated world.

In his first address to Queen Dullness, however, the florist immediately describes his manipulation and encapsulation of nature: “‘I rear’d this Flow’r.... Then thron’d in glass, and nam’d it Caroline:’” (Dunciad IV, 405-409). Rather than allowing Nature to frame his judgement, as Pope would prefer, the florist reverses the natural process, thereby mutating it. In addition, each time he mentions the name of his flower (“Caroline”), he follows immediately by including the reactions of “maids” and “youths,” as if to suggest dependence upon their approval. This makes maids and youths the test of art for the florist. And whereas Nature is a unifying force for Pope, the florist’s source of inspiration (the flower) branches off into two different directions immediately, the maids and the youths.

The entomologist’s relationship with nature is not manipulation, but rather conflict. His object of affection is a butterfly, which he pursues almost as a predator: “And where it fix’d, the beauteous bird I seiz’d:” (Dunciad IV, 430). He later refers to the captured, killed, and displayed butterfly as his “prize” (434) and his “spoils” (435). This is hardly the symbiotic relationship Pope envisions between the poet and nature. When confronted with the fact that he destroyed the flower, the entomologist shrugs it off and re-affirms the fragmentation of nature, favoring a smaller part over the whole: “Rose or Carnation was below my care; / I meddle, Goddess! only in my sphere.” (431-2).

Though the florist and entomologist are in conflict with each other, they both join in opposing Pope’s idea of nature’s power in literature; the Queen of Dullness approves of them both: “My sons! (she answer’d) both have done your parts: / Live happy both, and long promote our arts.” Two things of note jump from these two lines. The first is that the Queen, by “answering,” is acting as the judge or “Test of Art” instead of Nature itself. The second is her emphasis on each person doing his “part,” another sign of the fragmentation Pope has already shown us.

The Queen follows her verdict with a speech, culminating in the ultimate antagonism of Pope’s vision from the “Essay”: “See Nature in some partial narrow shape, / And let the Author of the Whole escape:” (455-6). The unifying syllepsis has been broken down and Nature’s frame utterly disregarded. In “The Dunciad,” Pope labors to expose bad poetry, and suggest its consequence, in the hope that the reader will recognize it. Literature that seeks to manipulate nature or seize it is bound to produce not poetry that leaves an invisible effect, but showy, flashy poetry that has no real power to the reader.