ESC: English Studies in Canada

C O N V E R S A T I O N A L S T Y L E I N P O P E ' S " E P I S T L E TO D R . A R B U T H N O T " FAITH GILDENHUYS Carleton University jRipe's Horatian Imitations are among the best examples of conversational poetry in English, and nowhere is there a better demonstration of the range and flexibility of that style than in “ An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" (hereafter “ Arbuthnot").1 Most discussions of the poem from this point of view, how­ ever, discuss the themes of conversational poetry, rather than the manner. These themes, of the tensions between friendship and truth, art and politics, poet and society, cannot and should not be detached from their expression. For, as Wesley Trimpi has pointed out, “ any study of style is, in the end, a study of an intention, of the expression of certain attitudes toward experience. Each attitude is the generalization of a given group of particular feelings, a process of organizing them. A style, then, in expressing an attitude, becomes a method for organizing the writer's feelings in a given situation."2 The problem of separating form and content is compounded in conversational poetry by the special problem of particularity and generality which sometimes interferes with our critical approaches to much of eighteenth-century litera­ ture : how does the poem - involving, as it does, so much local reference - escape its self-imposed limitations to appeal to another age, another time? One name for the intersection of particularity and generality is morality, and on a thematic level, the appeal of Pope's "Arbuthnot" is precisely in our willingness to grant that the persona of the poet in the poem is a representative of reason and right living. But to pursue this projection of virtue independently of the manner of presentation often leads to biographical and historical criticism of the poem, even where the stated objective is an examination of the stylistic techniques. If we recognize that the moral appeal to shared values in "Arbuthnot" requires a leap of faith, then we can begin to examine how our faith is supported through the poetic techniques of the conversational style. This style aims at intimacy - sometimes almost conspiracy - between poet and reader. Pope employs the characteristic low diction and realistic humble incident to dissolve aesthetic distance. He creates a persona analogous to himself to dramatize his integrity. The tones of voice throughout are, for the most part, those of normal conversation, ranging from irritation and anger to meditative seriousness. When Pope employs a more highly stylized voice, it is E n g l is h S t u d ie s in C a n a d a , h i, 4 , Winter 19 7 7 402 always by contrast to his conversational tone. These stylistic aspects of the poem contribute to its moral purpose. Pope's aim, however, is not only moral suasion, but also the creation of a work of art, and towards this end he has employed a number of other stylistic techniques which are more commonly associated with the heroic couplet form. Pope himself believed that the art contributes to the moral end. As he says in his "Advertisement" to An Essay on Man: I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious: that principles, maxims, or precepts so written both strike the reader more strongly at first and are more easily retained by him afterwards: The other may seem odd, but it is true, I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandring from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning ... With regard to his Horatian Imitations, Pope's emphasis on the necessary interrelationship between art and ethics is his primary means of generalizing the particularity. The following analysis of "Arbuthnot" is...