Patterns of Imagery in Pope's Arbuthnot

Abstract

N his "'Wit and Poetry and Pope': Some Observations on his Imagery" Maynard Mack speaks of Pope's wide variety of patterns "that help supply the kind of unity which he is popularly not supposed to have."' An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot offers striking illustration of this conception: analysis reveals patterns of images running throughout, each one discrete yet all so related as to give to the whole a metaphoric value which helps to tie the poem together. I do not mean to suggest that Arbuthnot has no other kind of unity apart from that given to it by these patterns of imagery, or that this imagery functions autonomously.2 Five main images emerge, all connected in a kind of evolution: animalfilth-disease-persecution-virtuous man. The animal image yields the filth, the noxious element out of which disease arises, disease turns into persecution, and persecution reveals the virtuous man. The animal image comprises all references to animals, worms, and insects in the poem, that is, to any sentient being below man. The basis of this image seems to lie in the association of the poetasters with "low Grubstreet." To Pope these men write and act without thinking, in automatic response to certain stimuli: they are like trained hawks, "May Dunce by Dunce be whistled off my hands!" (254),3 or like frogs that live on flies, wordcatchers that live on syllables (166). Furthermore, like spiders (89), they live in their own filth, so that disease flourishes in Grubstreet. From there in swarms and packs the creatures descend on Pope, carrying their infection with them. Pestered as he is by these flatterers and foes, he cannot keep from slapping in self-defense. Thus Pope justifies satire from a man of peace. It is not spiteful or inhumane to slap a mosquito or beat off a mad dog. He suffers fools with the greatest patience and restraint, but, stung beyond endurance, he is forced to cry out. And when he finally does lash out, there is something heroic in his flapping fools and whipping scoundrels regardless of their rank. However, he is far from bellicose: he keeps apart from the warfare of the wits. It is by stressing this proud aloofness ("I kept, like Asian Monarchs, from their sight," 220) that Pope can make the transition to his final picture of himself as vir bonus, full of love, nursing his aged mother and asking