Write
a critical note on Pope’s use of imagery in An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
A close reading of several passages from
the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot reveals the subtlety of Pope's associating himself
with great men and dissociating himself from dunces as a means of professing
and dramatizing his own internal harmony. A cluster of ingestion images, as yet
not fully explored, furthers the impression of a concordant persona. In his
defense for publishing his poetry, Pope characterizes his supporters with
epithets that suggest his own virtues. Further, the variety and climactic
presentation of his friends' responses establish a balance in the persona
between bold self-assertion and discriminating honesty. In the flatterers'
inept comparisons between Pope and historical figures. Pope disarms his enemies
by confronting the fact of his deformity in a comic guise. Third, Pope gains
from his association with Arbuthnot, in one instance appropriating Arbuthnot's
benignity by exploiting the medicinal connotations of the word
"drop." Through images of biting and dining Pope contrasts the
hunger, satiety, malice, and shallowness of the dunces with the generosity of
his own character.
From the beginning of the
poem, Pope initiates a running cluster of images based on animals, insects,
dirt and disease. He mentions Midas’s ass-ears, compares Codrus to a spider
enthroned in the centre of his flimsy lines, mentions the slaver of ‘mad
creatures’, the impurities found in amber and so on, culminating in a
devastating attack on Sporus (a thinly veiled disguise for John Hervey). Pope
calls him, “This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings” comparing him to
a cherub-faces reptile, evoking Satan.
All this imagery is to show
that society is full of such dirt and disease, which he calls the Plague.
Sporus is a carrier of disease and he infects physically and morally. His
character is a brilliant, concise metaphor to depict the evils of England of
the mid eighteenth century – corrupt politics and corrupt personal morality..........................................................................................................................
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