Question

Read the passage from "An Essay on Man.”

And to their proper operation still
Ascribe all Good, to their improper, Ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.

In the passage, Pope uses

parallelism in the line “And to their proper operation still.”
antithesis in the line “Ascribe all Good; to their improper, Ill.”
parallelism in the line “Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul.”
antithesis in the line “Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole.”

Answer 1

Only the second statement is correct.

- "Antithesis in the line 'Ascribe all Good, to their improper, Ill.'": correct — the line sets Good against Ill (and contrasts proper/improper), which is a clear antithesis.
- The others are incorrect:
- The first line alone ("And to their proper operation still") is not parallelism by itself; the balanced contrast (parallel structure) occurs across the two lines, not in that single line.
- "Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul." is a single clause with apposition, not parallelism.
- "Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole." contains no opposing idea, so it is not antithesis.