Recent students of criticism have usually placed Rapin in the School
of Sense. In fact Rapin clearly denominates himself a member of that
school. In the introduction to his major critical work, _Reflexions
sur la Poetique d'Aristote_ (1674), he states that his essay "is
nothing else, but Nature put in Method, and good _Sense_ reduced to
Principles" (_Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie_, London,
1731, II, 131). And in a few passages as early as "A Treatise de
Carmine Pastorali" (1659), he seems to imply that he is being guided
in part at least by the criterion of "good _Sense_." For example,
after citing several writers to prove that "brevity" is one of the
"graces" of pastoral poetry, he concludes, "I could heap up a great
many more things to this purpose, but I see no need of such a
trouble, since no man can rationally doubt of the goodness of my
Observation" (p.41).
The basic criterion, nevertheless, which Rapin uses in the "Treatise"
is the authority of the Ancients--the poems of Theocritus and Virgil
and the criticism of Aristotle and Horace. Because of his constant
references to the Ancients, one is likely to conclude that he (like
Boileau and Pope) must have thought they and Nature (good sense) were
the same. In a number of passages, however, Rapin depends solely on
the Ancients. Two examples will suffice to illustrate his absolutism.
At the beginning of "_The Second_ Part," when he is inquiring "into
the nature of _Pastoral,_" he admits:
And this must needs be a hard Task, since I have no guide,
neither _Aristotle_ nor _Horace_ to direct me.... And I am of
opinion that none can treat well and clearly of any kind of
_Poetry_ if he hath no helps from these two (p. 16).
In "_The Third_ Part," when he begins to "lay down" his _Rules for
writing_ Pastorals," he declares:
Yet in this difficulty I will follow _Aristotle's_ Example, who
being to lay down Rules concerning _Epicks_, propos'd _Homer_
as a Pattern, from whom he deduc'd the whole Art; So I will
gather from _Theocritus_ and _Virgil_, those Fathers of
_Pastoral_, what I shall deliver on this account (p. 52).
These passages represent the apogee of the neoclassical criticism of
pastoral poetry. No other critic who wrote on the pastoral depends so
completely on the authority of the classical critics and poets. As a
matter of fact, Rapin himself is not so absolute later. In the
section of the _Réflexions_ on the pastoral, he merely states that
the best models are Theocritus and Virgil. In short, one may say
that in the "Treatise" the influence of the Ancients is dominant; in
the _Réflexions_, "good _Sense_."
Reduced to its simplest terms, Rapin's theory is Virgilian. When
deducing his theory from the works of Theocritus and Virgil, his
preference is almost without exception for Virgil. Finding Virgil's
eclogues refined and elegant, Rapin, with a suggestion from Donatus
(p. 10 and p. 14), concludes that the pastoral "belongs properly to
the _Golden Age_" (p. 37)--"that blessed time, when Sincerity and
Innocence, Peace, Ease, and Plenty inhabited the Plains" (p. 5).
Here, then, is the immediate source of the Golden Age eclogue, which,
being transferred to England and popularised by Pope, flourished
until the time of Dr. Johnson and Joseph Warton.
In France the most prominent opponent to the theory formulated by
Rapin is Fontenelle. In his "Discours sur la Nature de l'Eglogue"
(1688) Fontenelle, with studied and impertinent disregard for the
Ancients and for "ceux qui professent cette espèce de religion que
l'on s'est faite d'adorer l'antiquité," expressly states that the
basic criterion by which he worked was "les lumières naturelles de
la raison" (_OEuvres_, Paris, 1790, V, 36). It is careless and
incorrect to imply that Rapin's and Fontenelle's theories of
pastoral poetry are similar, as Pope, Joseph Warton, and many other
critics and scholars have done. Judged by basic critical principles,
method, or content there is a distinct difference between Rapin and
Fontenelle. Rapin is primarily a neoclassicist in his "Treatise";
Fontenelle, a rationalist in his "Discours." It is this opposition,
then, of neoclassicism and rationalism, that constitutes the basic
issue of pastoral criticism in England during the Restoration and the
early part of the eighteenth century.
When Fontenelle's "Discours" was translated in 1695, the first phrase
of it quoted above was translated as "those Pedants who profess a
kind of Religion which consists of worshipping the Ancients" (p.294).
Fontenelle's phrase more nearly than that of the English translator
describes Rapin. Though Rapin's erudition was great, he escaped the
quagmire of pedantry. He refers most frequently to the scholiasts and
editors in "_The First Part_" (which is so trivial that one wonders
why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material),
but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas
"pedantial" (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian's
"prattle" (p. 11). And, though at times it seems that his curiosity
and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas
from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger,
Donatus, Vossius, Servius, Minturno, Heinsius, and Salmasius.
Rapin's most prominent disciple in England is Pope. Actually, Pope
presents no significant idea on this subject that is foreign to
Rapin, and much of the language--terminology and set phrases--of
Pope's "Discourse" comes directly from Rapin's "Treatise" and from
the section on the pastoral in the _Reflections_. Contrary to his own
statement that he "reconciled" some points on which the critics
disagree and in spite of the fact that he quotes Fontenelle, Pope in
his "Discourse" is a neoclassicist almost as thoroughgoing as Rapin.
The ideas which he says he took from Fontenelle are either
unimportant or may be found in Rapin. Pope ends his "Discourse" by
drawing a general conclusion concerning his _Pastorals_: "But after
all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old
authors, whose works as I had leisure to study, so I have not wanted
care to imitate." This statement is diametrically opposed to the
basic ideas and methods of Fontenelle, but in full accord with and no
doubt directly indebted to those of Rapin.
The same year, 1717, that Pope 'imitated' Rapin's "Treatise," Thomas
Purney made a direct attack on Rapin's neoclassic procedure. In the
"Preface" to his own _Pastorals_ he expresses his disapproval of
Rapin's method, evidently with the second passage from Rapin quoted
above in mind:
_Rapine's_ Discourse is counted the best on this Poem, for 'tis
the longest. You will easily excuse my not mentioning all his
Defects and Errors in this Preface. I shall only say then, that
instead of looking into the true Nature of the Pastoral Poem,
and then judging whether _Theocritus_ or any of his Followers
have brought it to it's utmost Perfection or not. _Rapine_
takes it for granted that _Theocritus_ and _Virgil_ are
infallible; and aim's at nothing beyond showing the Rules which
he thinks they observ'd. Facetious Head! (_Works_, Oxford,
1933, pp. 51-52. The Peroy Reprints, No. XII)
The influence of Rapin on the development of the pastoral,
nevertheless, was salutary. Finding the genre vitiated with wit,
extravagance, and artificiality, he attempted to strip it of these
Renaissance excrescencies and restore it to its pristine purity by
direct reference to the Ancients--Virgil, in particular. Though Rapin
does not have the psychological insight into the esthetic principles
of the genre equal to that recently exhibited by William Empson or
even to that expressed by Fontenelle, he does understand the
intrinsic appeal of the pastoral which has enabled it to survive, and
often to flourish, through the centuries in painting, music, and
poetry. Perhaps his most explicit expression of this appreciation is
made while he is discussing Horace's statement that the muses love
the country:
And to speak from the very bottome of my heart... methinks he
is much more happy in a Wood, that at ease contemplates this
universe, as his own, and in it, the Sun and Stars, the
pleasing Meadows, shady Groves, green Banks, stately Trees,
flowing Springs, and the wanton windings of a River, fit
objects for quiet innocence, than he that with Fire and Sword
disturbs the World, and measures his possessions by the wast
that lys about him (p. 4).
René Rapin (1621-1687), in spite of his duties as a Jesuit priest and
disputes with the Jansenists, became one of the most widely read men
of his time and carried on the celebrated discussions about the
Ancients with Maimbourg and Vavasseur. His _chef-d'oeuvre_ without
contradiction is _Hortorum libri IV_. Like Virgil, Spenser, Pope, and
many aspiring lesser poets, he began his literary career by writing
pastorals, _Eclogae Sacrae_ (1659), to which is prefixed in Latin the
original of "A Treatise de Carmine Pastorali."
J.E. Congleton
University of Florida
Reprinted here from the copy owned by the Boston Athenaeum by
permission.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
A