Pope And Coleridge's Idea Of Nature example essay topic

Introduction Considering the history of literature, the conception of Nature seems to be a quite complex question. 'Nature' is not a concept that can be grasped easily and it often requires discussing some great philosophical conceptions like 'Pantheism' or 'Deism'. However, my paper will not deal in detail with such vast enquiries. I rather want to focus more accurately on how 'Nature' is used by Pope and Coleridge, respectively. With other words, I would like to analyse the function of the concept of 'Nature'.

The fact is, that even if these poets do not exhaustively characterise 'Nature' itself, they employ it in a lot of different analogies and metaphors to articulate and embody for example ideas about 'morality' (Pope) or the intimate 'self' (Coleridge). My argument would be to show that in both cases, nature has a sort of epistemological function. The apprehension of nature, its perception or its examination leads to knowledge of something that is not directly obvious; one can name it God or the divine. Thus, to mention of nature is a kind of disclosure that guides us to be aware of some reality that is meta-physical.

As a matter of fact, the ways Nature is described by Pope and by Coleridge are very different: Pope uses a sort of analogical technique, whereas Coleridge exploits the more suggestive power of metaphors. That point shows that, even though Nature has the same overall function, that is reveal something that is beyond the mere material world, the way it can and should be perceived is not the same. I would like to argue that Coleridge considers a sort of intuitive faculty, whereas Pope thinks that a reasonable examination of Nature unveils the divine order of the universe. The present analysis will spotlight Pope's Essay On Man and Coleridge's Rime of an Ancient Mariner. First, I want to show that Coleridge and Pope advocate a pantheistic and a deistic conception of Nature, respectively. This should be the general framework through which I will try to show some other differences.

Then, in a second time, the use of a concept like "reason" will be analysed in regard to Pope's Essay on Man. This step shows that even if Pope is a writer of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, he deeply condemns the arrogance that results of a pretentious use of reason. In fact, reason should therefore be seen as an important but limited resource, for one cannot pretend to grasp through reason the whole system of the universe. In a third time, I will try to proceed to the same analysis in Coleridge's Rime of an Ancient Mariner. In contrast to Pope's text, Coleridge emphasizes the role of emotion and experience and he doesn't seem to really accord great importance to reason. In this sense we will see that unsurprisingly Coleridge's poetry raises typical Romantic topics.

Nature in Pope's Essay on Man An Essay on Man is a didactic and quasi-philosophical poem. E talons for that genre can be found in antiquity, especially in Lucretius's De Rerum Natura (Nuttall Pope's 'Essay on Man' 44). Lucretius's poem is an exposition of Epicurean philosophy and a vast speculation about natural phenomena and more fundamentally about the whole universe. Pope's poem seems to have fairly the same far-reaching scope in its subject matter, but unlike Lucretius's one, it is guided by a Christian faith. In addition, in the vein of Augustan poets, Pope's ambition is to define some "general truths"; he wants to show the orderly and logical structure of the universe and the place of "Man" and "Nature" within it. The first Epistle on which I would like to focus is titled "The Nature and State of Man with respect to the universe".

Nature is thus a topic, but the question is: what exactly is the function of Nature in Pope's work? Epistle I is deliberately ordered, growing out of Pope's central premise that the world man inhabits might appear to be a "mighty maze" (I, 7), but it is not without "plan" (I, 7). As he declares "frame", "bearings" and "ties" (I, 29) provide a coherent structure that informs the world. Thus, Pope's aim is to reveal someway that "plan" and to describe this prior established order 1. In that context, the poet defends a very specific conception of 'order' and claims in favour of an idea that was very popular at that time: the Great Chain of Beings. The latter is a philosophical doctrine that, a priori, explains the unity of creation.

Of course, all arguments assume the existence of God. In vindicating the perfect unity of creation, this doctrine leads to a sort of theodicy-like conclusion, that is, the claim that the world is the best that God could have created. This is an important point that I will consider again later. For now, consider the fact that Pope largely deems the idea of a scala naturae. It describes the ladders of the world of observable reality, "Creation's ample range", from the "green myriads in the peopled grass" to "Man's imperial race" (I, 207-10). The Great Chain of Beings implies that all living species are intimately related to each other in a strong hierarchical order.

An obvious gradation in the mental and sensual faculties exists among God's creatures. Therefore, each creature is subordinated to an other one and all creatures to man and beyond. God of course is on the top of the Chain. Hence, all beings have a clearly fixed place. Since man lacks full knowledge of the stations that are beyond him, the hierarchy of the Great Chain of Beings also advocates for some humility in the presence of God's creation. As Pope argues: Say first, of God above, or man below, What can we reason, but from what we know?

Of man what see we, but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? Thro' worlds un number'd tho' the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. (I, 17-21) The author insists on the fact that man can only know his place in the Chain and the ranks below; on the other hand, he remains ignorant of what is beyond. Any attempt to know more than his rank is considered as a pretentious act; as a being, man is allotted to his place in God's creation. As a consequence, man owes absolute submission to "the great directing mind of all" (266). Man has therefore to concede his limited understanding and accept his own role within that stupendous whole.

Considering these statements, the influence of authors like Leibniz, H oraz or Virgil seems quite plain. Moreover, Pope alleges that we are living in the best world ever possible. This optimistic, typically leibniz ian, feature is symptomatically stressed at the end of the first Epistle of Pope's Essay: All Nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord; harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, (I, 287-291) The idea of unity he espouses is apparently a paradoxical one, based on integrated opposites. It is "A Wild, where weeds and flow " rs promiscuous shoot " (I, 7) and where "all subsists by elemental strife" (I, 169). This harmony of contraries includes strife and antagonism, and builds a background for a concept of man that increases in complexity. Beyond the aesthetic effect of this language of paradox, which is highly dramatis ed through the rhetorical figure of anaphora, the conclusion that follows is however unequivocal: "Whatever is, is right" (I, 292).

In arguing that way, Pope builds a new theodicy, and "a theodicy takes it for granted that there is a God, at once powerful and benevolent" (Fraser Alexander Pope 67). However, as Voltaire's Candide has shown, theodicy faces some difficulties when trying to explain and moderate pain and suffering of human beings. Since "Whatever is, is right" (I, 292), even the most horrible natural catastrophe (as for example the crucial earthquake in Lisbon on the 1. November 1755) should be considered as good! This clearly leads to an absurd justification of evil. One possible strategy consists in limiting God's omniscience and power.

Yet, this strategy is not feasible for a pious catholic author like Pope (Fraser Alexander Pope 68). On occasion, especially in the second Epistle, suffering seems to receive a quite human explanation: passions that are what "discomposes the mind" (I, 167), and which are also part of Nature. Nevertheless, such an account is not satisfying whatsoever. In Epistle II, the chaotic nature of man, his passions, appears to be a mere cause of disorder, because they pull man to leave the place he occupies in the Great Chain of Beings. To put it in other words, they are not simply bad as such. Even if injustice and pain seem to be a constitutional characteristic of man's life, it is not useful and furthermore, not desirable to act against this injustice.

In fact, seeing that the laws of Nature are the best ever possible, injustice is a only a sort of feeling that occurs because mankind remains blind to the higher good. Man can only aspire to a limited knowledge of the universe and consequently, discordance is an appearance, because man is unable to understand all plans of the Universe. However, this rises an important question: How should then be Pope's aim (describe the "plan" of the universe) be considered? What is the status of such a venture? This "older tradition of faith" is brought to light through the humility that Pope recommends and which should preserve reason from pride. The problem is that we are "restricted to knowledge of human affairs and that any attempt to reason beyond the range of our information is absurd" (Fraser, Pope's Essay 58).

What then about the Pope's project; is it not an overt expression of pride to speak about the universe? In fact, man can infer knowledge thanks analogical thinking. In reality, man can nevertheless reach some knowledge of the laws of God through analogy, and knowledge of the laws of nature, and reason should allow man to know the laws of Nature. As Nuttall argues: "the business of finding God in the creation, is applied to the altogether lowlier task of finding the laws of nature" (Nuttall Pope's 'Essay on Man' 60). Thanks reason, man can make inferences beyond the information, that can be reached through mere perception or observation of his own rank and the ladders below. To that time, it was admitted that "the world was intelligible as a province of a larger order" (Nuttall Pope's 'Essay on Man' 60).

In the lines 43-48, Pope employs very symptomatically the conditional form 'if... then' when stating the universe's hierarchical structure, and man's place in it, i.e. in the Great Chain of Beings. What does it reveal? Pope's logical proceeding shows that the kind of knowledge he handles with is not empirical, but reached by "reasoning rather than personal experience" (Fairer The Poetry of Alexander Pope 80). I started with the statement that Pope was a deistic thinker, but is that really true?

Critics like Benziger think that Pope has recourse to the idea of pantheism to overcome the inability of human understanding to comprehend the whole universe (Benziger Organic unity: from Spinoza to Coleridge 30). A crucial point should still be mentioned. Despite the similarity between the realm of Nature and the realm of God, the latter cannot be reduced to the former otherwise Pope's deistic approach is no longer valid (it would be a sort of pantheistic reductionism). However, the fact that the author defends a deistic conception of the universe means that God cannot be reduced to Nature, as it is the case in Spinoza's pantheism; Nature is clearly conceived as the 'body' of the universe, and God its 'soul' (I, 267-68). These remarks deliver a first idea of Pope's conception of Nature. The observation of Nature's plan has then by some means an epistemic function; it provides knowledge of the divine, and, in this way, vindicates God.

Yet, the role of reason in the apprehension of Nature and its plan should be balanced; reason can also cause man's unhappiness if it renders him arrogant and proud of his rational capacity. Pope declares: "In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies" (I, 123). More specifically, our unhappiness comes when we aspire to more knowledge than God allotted us. Pope's poem expresses a very traditional Christian view. Surprisingly, even if Pope's text was written earlier then Coleridge's, Christian narratives like redemption or guilt are not so many in the Essay on Man. The poem seems rather more to stress a conflict between faith and scientific knowledge.

Indeed, Pope tries to substitute an old religious discourse with a systemic conception of cosmos, regarded as a transcendental order, partly accessible for human reason. As Cutting-Gray and Swearing assert: Not only does the poem describe human nature outside the lexicon and genres of traditional theological discussion, the famous opening metaphor form landscape architecture puts the commonplace truths in an entirely new narrative setting and supplies an important clue to how the poem puts "Man" in the context of nature externalized (Cutting-Gray, Swearingen System, the Divided Mind, and the 'Essay on Man' 481) In a way, he hassles on resignation to one's rank and the need for humility. As he finally states: "To reason right is to submit" (I, 164). Furthermore, "the humble dream of the simple Indian is favourably The overall moral then is clear: "the more man submits to God's purposes... the more man will see that the apparent contradictions of this world are resolved in higher harmony" (Fraser Alexander Pope 68). contrasted with the intellectual ambition of the astronomer" (Fraser, Pope's Essay 55). In the context of that quite ambivalent function of reason as a mean to knowledge of Nature, it becomes also clear why Pope's poem is only considered as an attempt, precisely titled 'Essay'. Now, the function of nature can be defined more precisely.

Nature has a clear plan, but in the same way, it appears as a very static entity. In a sense, this Nature is depicted as a sort of 'objective order beyond man', which is never revealed through introspection (Fraser Alexander Pope 71). Yet, Nature is knowable thanks reason. The crucial point is that the contemplation of Nature leads to knowledge of God's plan, that is what I called the divine.

This epistemological claim is completely anti-romantic since authors of Romanticism like Coleridge defend an intuitive access to Nature. Nature in Colerdige's Rime of The Ancient Mariner The poem tells the story of a Mariner's strange voyage. During the crossing, he turns out to be trapped in fog and ice (51-62). Then, an albatross appears "as if it were a Christian soul" (66).

The crew first welcomes the bird (67-68) who rapidly appears to have mysterious influence on the natural phenomena: as soon as the bird flies round the ice splits and the wind blows again. However, this symbiosis does not last perpetually; after nine nights, the Mariner shoots the Albatross by means of a crossbow with no reason. After that, the rest of the crew reprimands him for having killed the bird; a bird that finally made the wind blow (94-95). Furthermore, after a pseudo lull suggested by the fog's breaking (99-100), the sea turns dry, the wind stops to blow again, and the crew faces frightening paranormal events.

In order to emphasize his culpability, the sailors hang the corpse of the dead sea bird round the Mariner's neck (140-141). Next, the sailors meet a ghost-ship, which carries Death and Life-among-death (188,193). These ghostlike figures (197) decide that all but the Mariner should die, and all his crew fall to the deck dead (226-229). The Mariner is left without company but his guilt and begins a cruel wandering on the sea. Finally, the Mariner frees himself when he blesses a water-snake that swims next to the Ship.

Through this act, he recognizes the beauty of Nature and its superiority. At that moment, his misery ends, as he sees evidence of God's presence in the water-snakes. Before we try to compare Pope's representation of Nature and the ways of its apprehension, we should ask if Coleridge's poem has any philosophical meaning or if it is only a work of pure imagination 2. That question is justified, because the killing of the albatross seems to be a quite irrational and unmotivated act, which makes any interpretation very difficult. Indeed, we see that the poem is set up with theological concepts, such as guilt, redemption and penance. Yet, as the argument announces at the beginning, the poet is obviously more interested in the consequences of the Mariner's action, than their motivations.

How the Ancient Mariner [... ] killed the Seabird and how he was followed by many and strange Judgments. The Poem can be read as an allegory for the Christian redemptive process; redemption for a quite motiveless guilt. It can also function as a symbol of the Fall, a transcript of the imagery of the original sin. It should also be retained that the Albatross is compared to "a Christian soul" (65). Hence, by killing it - by doing a "hellish thing" (91) -, he acts like fallen angel who tries to rebel against Heaven's authority. In that context, the poem can be read in different ways, its dreamlike quality suggests a lot of different interpretations.

The usual interpretation suggests that the Mariner committed a crime against the 'one life', he offended Nature as a whole. As a consequence, he endures Nature's penalty, which is long and so painful that, even if closes his eyes, he cannot erase his crime or the horror of his natural surroundings out of his mind (250-252). For some other exegete's, the poem simply illustrates the pure and creative imagination, and no deeper meaning should be searched for. However, the difficulty of the poem is the fact that none of these interpretations seems to succeed completely in the elucidation of the Poem's meaning. Nevertheless, some general but clear distinction can be made. First, there is an obvious opposition between the order of the land and, so to speak, disorder and dreamlike logic of the sailor's voyage.

Furthermore, at the beginning of the poem, to worlds seem to compete: the one of the wedding guests and the sailor's own one, which arouse fear and apprehension to the assembly. However, no matter what the meaning of the sailor's act exactly is, the following question should be asked: what is the relation between the overt Christian thematic of the poem and the concept of Nature? The hypothesis that must be confirmed is the fact that Colerdige's poem suggests that Nature can reveal the divine. The evocation of Nature plays thus a very important role. In reality, as mentioned in the introduction, Nature is the place where the divine is revealed to the sailor. Interestingly, this revelation happens principally through supernatural events, suggesting that Nature is animated and not static.

All the supernatural elements reveal a higher presence, something that human understanding cannot grasp directly through reason. The sailor clearly deals with the irrational in an area, where the borders between Nature and supernatural phenomena are blurred. (Bonnecass S.T. Coleridge 169). The Rime expresses the tension between the real and the visionary, which he seems to resolve in favour of the supernatural.

The invasive forces of Nature also reminds of an almost living natural environment (59). This aspect is patent when the poet personifies natural phenomena such as the "wings" of the Storm-blast, which relies to the realm of animal life. Consequently, the Mariner clearly experiences an animated Nature, which is spirited insofar he obviously personifies it: The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. (25-28) After the shooting of the Albatross, Nature awakens by and by, like the death-fires (128), or the water-spirit (155).

At the same time, the sailor's guilt grows inside his conscience, but until he recognizes the Beauty, which the water-snake embodies, he remains incapable of praying for salvation and guidance. Comparing to Pope, it appears that Nature is not depicted as a mechanical and compartment ed abstract order. Nature is animated by "spirits" that are never completely unveiled, but also literally stands for a Christian message. Nature is not only the object of an aesthetical or intellectual contemplation. As Woodring stresses out: To the Wordsworth of the Prelude and to Coleridge, Nature meant the fundamental unitary principle requisite to reality, the principle underlying all beings and things and any one being or thing [... ].

He [Coleridge] continues, we may designate by the word Nature the potentiality of a thins, as the natural state of the tadpole has potential within it the frog, or is potential in the larva (Woodring Nature and Art in the Nineteenth Century 193) It is rather the very incarnation of God's spirit, which is precisely revealed throughout the idea of animated Nature. To put it in other words, it "comes to life" through unusual or even supernatural events. In The Rime of The Ancient Mariner the whole crossing is plunged in a gothic atmosphere, where nature has an almost frightening presence as for example in the following famous lines: The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled (59-61) An important difference between Pope and Coleridge should be mentioned; the latter's conception of Nature appears to be pantheistic, what clearly unfits with the deistic convictions of the former. In The Rime, Coleridge's pantheism is chiefly articulated throughout supernatural phenomena. Nature rather participates to an organic unity that is not reducible to mere physical phenomena; a unity that the Mariner also disturbed by shooting the Albatross. For Benziger, Coleridge's pantheism comes precisely to expression in the concept of organic unity, which is inherited from different philosophers.

As the author stresses out: Coleridge's organic notion of art is part and parcel of certain pantheistic notions of the universe, such notions as may be derived from Plotinus, from Spinoza, and from Schelling (Benziger Organic unity: from Spinoza to Coleridge 29) 3. As a corollary, a romantic poet like Coleridge considers primary the facts, the natural phenomena, whereas Pope exposes first some principles like the Great Chain of Beings. During the romantic epoch, such a conception is gradually replaced with Imagination. Imagination is a quite complex concept, because it is at the same time a new ontology of Nature and a faculty of man.

In fact, it is the idea of a creative energy of the world, and also that of an inner power of man, which the genius posses most (Bonnecass S.T. Coleridge 88). Besides, this ambivalence shows a typical romantic topic that The Rime exemplifies thoroughly well: the relations of mind and nature (Beer Coleridge's Poetic Intelligence 44 f. ). As argued above, Coleridge's pantheism is also related to the theological framework he uses. Furthermore, the Christian redemption finally enables man to see the beauty of Nature.

This clearly argues in favour of the epistemological function of Nature. A remarkable point is that the whole process of growing awareness of Nature is very empiric. It literally seems to need an experience like the one of the old Mariner. It also appears that the Mariner is bitterly paying penance for his sin. The Mariner endures loneliness and a kind of spiritual agony. Even if he recovers happiness at the end of his journey - the sailor returns to his home - he never recovers it totally.

He is remote from God and Mankind, and above all, he is also unable to pray and to help himself. Redemption will only occur when the Mariner recognises the Beauty of God and Nature achieves a new balance between reason and emotion. What then is the function of Nature in this poem? Nature but also supernatural events provide the sequence of events some natural scenery. Coleridge's ballad is not about Nature himself. In fact the theme of it seems to be quite religious, and the killing of the albatross works as an allegory for Redemption and Fall.

Moreover, unlike Pope's didactic purpose, Colerdige tells the story of a mere experience that tries to recreate ambiances and to affect the reader. In fact, the poem deals with the concept of the sublime. In Coleridge's poem the symbolic aspects of the Mariner's voyage are peculiarly well dramatis ed. The beginning of the text suggests that the hero leaves all different sorts of orders: social order, religious order, natural order and also logical order (Bonnecass S.T. Coleridge 172). Moreover, in the history of literature, a crossing is always associated to a personal experience. After this change has begun, the main part of the poem replaces our ordinary perception and thought and, thanks to its evocative allure, demands a quite more intuitive understanding as, for example, Pope's Essay.

Conclusion Pope thinks that Nature is a well-structured organisation with a plan and which is knowable through reason. Even if it appears to us as "a mighty maze" there is a hidden harmony -- a deeper truth -- , which is accessible for reasonable man and leads to knowledge of God's plan. One the other side, Coleridge deems almost Nature as animated by supernatural forces, of which its manifestations are manifold in his poem. As a consequence, the divine becomes better penetrable through imagination. Furthermore, the supernatural becomes an allegory for profound human experiences which the physical world alone cannot represent. From a stylistic point of view, Coleridge expresses such a metaphor in a very fanciful language of images.

For recapitulation, Coleridge defends a perceptive (and intuitive) contemplation of the World, whereas Pope supports a reflexive consideration of Nature. Yet, in both cases, the "epistemological" function of Nature is the same: it discloses God or the divine. It seems that he reduces God to Nature. To sum up, let me consider the initial question: what is the function of Nature in Pope's Essay on Man and in Colerdige's Rime of The Ancient Mariner, respectively?

As I argued above, both authors deem Nature as a mean to understand the divine or some other metaphysical force. However, they diverge in the way this structure of the universe is captured. For Pope, it is reason that gives access to the plan of the universe that is to God. On contrary, for Coleridge, it is emotion and experience that leads to the awareness of the divine.

Further, it should be asked to what extent the analysis of the concept of Nature illustrates the differences between the classical and the romantic period. Is it correct to state that, in this definite perspective, Pope and Coleridge's idea of Nature is quite emblematic of their respective epoch?

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