Epilogue

It was in the radiant image of light shining on light that Johnson conceived of the relationship between poetry and poetic style. As exemplified in his personified vision of criticism in Rambler III, the central metaphor in Johnson's writings, by which he sought to illuminate the nature of poetry, was that of light. It was by the ‘steady light of the torch of Truth’ (III. 17) that he turned his gaze upon both poetry and poetical language. He directed the reader to the luminosity of the poet's figuration in language which is ‘lighted by Truth’ (III. 16). Even when he wished to point to falsity in poetic expression Johnson carefully used the same image, implying all along that it was in the irradiation of light by light, in the intellectual lustre of the poet's vision and expression, that he saw the transfiguration of truth into Truth.

Johnson's metaphor is carefully chosen to incorporate a whole tradition, beginning with Plato and the Bible, that equated light with truth. Milton had revived in poetry the Platonic idea of Light not only as the principal image of God, but also as the divine emanation itself, which breaks into separate beams to produce the various splendours of created things. The opening of the third book of Paradise Lost rejuvenated the whole tradition from the Bible to Spenser's An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie, of the image of light as reflecting wisdom and truth. Dryden, at the beginning of Religio Laici had brought the association of light with truth and religion to the fore of the Augustan consciousness: