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).