Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

The Rape of the Lock as a mock epic

Sometime during the summer of 1711, the circle of prominent Catholic families in the
home counties was disturbed by the rash act of Robert, 7th Lord Petre, in removing
part of her coiffure from a famous beauty, Arabella Fermor
...
A common acquaintance and well wisher to both families, John Caryll, an
intimate friend of Alexander Pope, desired him to write a poem to make a jest of it and
laugh them together again
...
All the three types of literary mockery- burlesque, parody and
mock heroic, were blended together in The Rape of the Lock, which where the
characteristic products of the age of reason
...
Heroic poems like the Odyssey, the Aenied,
Paradise Lost deals with man, in its exalted aspects; their action is weighty, their
personages are dignified and their style is elevated
...
The discrepancy between
the trivial subject and grandiose treatment gives rise to amusement
...
”
The classical Epic had enjoyed an immense vogue and prestige from 16th to 18th
century; every poet was ambitious of writing epics
...
The classical
myths and metaphors came to be regarded with grave suspicion as untrue
...
It was this situation, produced by the impact of new philosophy on epic
that accelerated the development of mock epic
...

When Pope came to write The Rape of the Lock in 1711, there were some sources of
influence before him: a poem, La Secchi Rapita ( The Rape of the Bucket) by an Italian
poet, Tassoni, describing in mock-heroic mode the battles of two parties in Italy; a Latin
mock-epic about chess, Scaccia Ludus by Renaissance poet Girolamo Vida; French critic
and poet, Boileau’s La Lutrin, describing in a serio- comic manner, the quarrel between
the Treasurer and Precentor of La Sainte Chapelle in Paris over the matter of placing
the reading table-Lutrin; Dr Samuel Garth’s The Dispensary dealing with the quarrel
between the physicians and apothecaries over the dispensing of free drugs to the
London poor; and lastly the French book Le Comte de Gabalis from where Pope
derived the Rosicrucian system of spiritology
...
The
poet's purpose at this stage was neither to ridicule the epic genre nor to provide a
humorous parallel to all the principal ingredients of epic but to “diminish” the affair of
the lock of hair
...
While analysing the
bantering treatment of grand epic manner in The Rape of the Lock, we need to keep in
mind the epic canons approved by Aristotle and some of the conventions found in
Milton's Paradise Lost, Homer's Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid which the poem constantly
recall
...
The title of Pope’s poem, The Rape of the Lock is thus a
parody of the Iliad for here the mighty contest ensues from the rape of the lock of
Belinda
...
The Rape of the Lock parodies the serious epics like
Homer's Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, in the statement of argument or theme with
invocation of the Muse, at the beginning of the poem
...
John Caryll,
a Roman Catholic a close friend of Pope and the well wisher of both the families of
Petres and Fermors, acts as Pope’s Muse, who has inspired him to write the poem, on
the incident of the “dire offence” that has sprung from “am’rous causes” and “mighty
contests” that is risen from “trivial things”
...
To begin with, is the dream message from the gods
...
Belinda's dressing up in her dressing room with innumerable embellishments
aided by her maid Betty “in the sacred rites of pride” follows the conventional of arming
of an epic hero for battle
...

Pope even parodies the sacrifice to the gods by the Epic Hero praying for their victory
...
The golden
colour in the edge of the French Romances hint at the mere outer attractiveness with
no solid comprehendible matter within
...
There is hardly any question of love for the Baron
because he is contemplating to cut the locks of Belinda to project his male ego
...
The
Baron “prostrate falls” before the god of love, begging with eager eyes, to be successful
in his undertaking
...
We find here a battle, drawn forth to combat like the Greeks, on a velvet
plain, fought with fans and snuff instead of swords and spears
...
There is also a parody of the epic feast
in the coffee session after the “battle” of cards
...

In Epics, heroes were god-like Hector and Ajax
...

In Epics, gods and demons, whether pagan or Christian, form the “machinery” who
supplement the human actions
...
Taken from the Rosicrucian
cult, the sylphs and gnomes reduce the divine and demonic agents of an epic poem to
their diminutive status
...
Ariel assigns his fellow “denizens of air” with important duties over
Belinda “by laws eternal” (Pope here makes fun of the Divine Rights of England),
addressing them as “Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves and Daemons hear!” Zephyrretta is
assigned to care the “fluttering fan” of Belinda, Brillante the ear drops, Momentilla to
keep watch, Crispissa to tend her lock, Ariel shall be the Guard of Shock, 50 chosen

sylphs would take care of her petticoat
...
There is a large mock parallel of The
Rape of the Lock with Paradise Lost between the situation of fallen angels at the
opening of Milton's first book and the punishments promised by Pope’s Ariel to “spirit,
careless of his charge”
...

A mock epic in Augustan sense is itself an example of collation of the great with the
little
...
If Pope was right
when he said that ‘the use of pompous expression for low actions is ‘the perfection of
Mock Epick’, The Rape of the Lock passes the test with highest honours
...
Pope also unites the great and
the trivial by the device of zeugma as in Ariel’s exhortation to the guarding sylphs, there
is a curious mixture of high and low: “Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or
some frail China jar receive a flaw,”… In the passage,we find chastity equated with frail
China jar, honour with new brocade, prayer with masquerade, heart with a necklace
...

Though the subject matter of The Rape of the Lock is trivial and ridiculous, the style,
diction and versification are rarely so
...
Periphrasis is frequently resorted to; the
scissors with which Baron performs the rape of the lock is “ two-edged weapon”,”little
engine”, “fatal engine” and “glittering Forfex
...
Ariel’s description of the metamorphosis of a prudish woman into a sylph is a
direct parody of Aeneid
...
”
Dryden's Mac Flecknoe appears rather straight forward and simple when compared
with The Rape of the Lock
...
In The Rape of the Lock, satire is mixed
with genuine charm which surrounds the central figure, Belinda
...
The balance between the concealed irony and the assumed
gravity is as nicely trimmed as the balance of power in Europe

---