pope's rape of the lock

8/13/2019 Pope's Rape of the Lock

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Popes The Rape of the Lock

ENGL 203

Dr. Fike


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Summary

Swift:

Surface vs. depth

The role of reason

Pope: Surface vs. depth

Decorum

Swift & Pope: Juvenalian: Swift

Horatian: Pope


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More Summary

Modest Role of reasonGT Surface > depth Rape

Decorum (false

values)


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Review Questions

What did you learn about the following

things in A Modest Proposal?

Surface vs. depth

The role of reason

persona:_______::Swift:______


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Epic

H&H: A long narrative poem in elevated

style presenting characters of high position

in adventures forming an organic whole

through their relation to a central heroicfigure and through their development of

episodes important to the history of a

nation or race.


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Characteristics of an Epic

The hero has great stature.

The setting is vast.

Action = deeds that require courage and produce valor.

The supernatural is present.

Invocation of the muse.

The epic starts in medias res (Latin, in the middle ofthings).

Division into books and cantos.

Catalogs.

Epic/Homeric similes.

Epic games.


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Mock Epic/Mock Heroic

H&H: Terms for a literary form that

burlesques the epic by treating a trivial

subject in the grand style or uses the epic

formulas to make a trivial subjectridiculous by ludicrously overstating it.

Usually, the characteristics of the classical

epic are employed, etc.


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Epic vs. Mock Epic

EPIC



Action = deeds that requirecourage and produce valor.



The epic starts in medias resand uses retrospectivenarration.


Catalogs


Popes MOCK EPIC


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Epic vs. Mock Epic

EPIC



Action = deeds that requirecourage and produce valor.



The epic starts in medias resand uses retrospectivenarration.


Catalogs (e.g., of deaths)


MOCK EPIC

The hero is a vain female.

The setting is a party.

A guy cuts her hair off.

Gnomes and sylphs arediminutive.

John Caryll was part of Popesinspiration.

Poem starts at the beginning ofthe action.

Division into cantos.

Catalogs of trivial things.

Extended similes trivializerather than elevate.


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Other Mockery

Epic stratagem (e.g.,

the Trojan horse)

Descent into the

underworld Epic battle

Weapons

A pinch of snuff

Cave of Spleen

Card game

Hairpin, scissors,

snuff


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Epic Simile

angel forms, who lay entranc'd

Thickas autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades

High over-arch'd embow'r; or scatter'd sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd

Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrewBusiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursu'd

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore their floating carcases

And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,

Under amazement of their hideous change.

Milton, PL1.301-13


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Example of Epic Simile

As when the shudder of the west wind suddenlyrising scatters across the water, and the waterdarkens beneath it, so darkening were settledthe ranks of Achaians and Trojans in theplain.

--Homers Iliad

A = what the fallen angels did; what the twoarmies did

B = what the leaves did; wind on the water


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Epic Simile

You compare A in your text to B outside thetext. But B gets more description than Adoes.

Thus H&H: The epic simile differs from anordinary simile in being more involved andornate, in a conscious imitation of the Homeric

manner. The vehicle [i.e., the illustration] isdeveloped into an independent aesthetic object,an image that for the moment upstages the tenor[i.e., the subject] with which it is compared.


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The Point

When you use a high style and a poetic

form associated with classical heroes, the

result is that you undercut the characters

in your poem.

Example of a guy from my section of this

class a few years ago.


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An Extended Simile in a Mock Epic

V.45ff.: Re. the debate between Thalestris and Clarissa

So when bold Homer makes the gods engage,

And heavenly breasts with human passions rage;

Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms;

And all Olympus rings with loud alarms.

Joves thunder roars, heaven trembles all around;

Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound;

Earth shakes her nodding towers, the ground gives way;

And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day!


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The Point

An epic poet gives us characters (heroes, gods) who arelarger than life.

Pope, in his mock epic, gives us a female main characterwho fixates on a trivial situation connected to diminutive

supernatural figures who relate to negative humancharacteristics.

Thus the grandeur of epicthis includes its similes andthe roles played by the godsunderscores the trivialityand emptiness of the situation that Pope is describing.

This is all good fun, but there is also serious commentaryafootthe poem will delight and teach, as Sidney says,and virtue may be the result.


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Two-Minute Writing Exercise

What do you think the poem is trying to

teach? What is the moral of the story?


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Questions for Small Group Work

1. What is the function of Ariel, the sylphs, and thegnomes? What's going on in the card game in CantoIII?

2. What does the language at I.121-48 suggest about

Belinda? What is the poet saying about virtue andespecially about the way it gets trivialized?

3. How is chastity portrayed? See II.105-06, III.157-60,and IV.162-63.

4. Do you find any allusions to Paradise Lostin II.123-42?Anywhere else?

5. What does Thalestris represent? See IV.89ff.

6. What does Clarissa represent? See V.9ff.


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What is the function of Ariel, the sylphs, and

the gnomes? Card game?

The sylphs purpose is not just to keep Belindaa virgin but also to keep her a coquette, awoman who uses her charm and beauty toappeal to men but who never lets anyonetouch her. See II.9-12.

The gnomes purpose is to turn Belinda into aprude. See I.79-82

Card game: III.143ff. Belinda wins the game,but she has feelings for the Baron. Seeespecially III.127-46.


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What does the language at I.121-

48 suggest about Belinda? Belinda represents the values desired in

marriage in the 18thcentury: beauty > virtue;surface > depth. Decorum: Pope is criticizingconcern with superficial appearance.

Her beauty is described as being divine. References to the sun: As the sun is central to

the solar system, so Belinda is the center of theparty. Other sun references: I.13-14, 144; II.13-

14; III.155-56; V.145-47. Another suggestion of her divinity: Let Spadesbe Trump! and Trumps they were (III.46).


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How is chastity portrayed?

II.105-06

III.157-60

IV.162-63

POINT: Chastity is like china: delicate, fragile, easilybroken, irreparable

John Gay: She who before was highest prizd, / Is for acrack or flaw despisd.

George Herbert: A woman and a glass are ever in

danger.


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Do you find any allusions to Paradise Lost?

I.19ff.: Satan whispers a dream into Eves ear. Ariel whispers a dream ofpride and vanity in Belindas ear.

I.125-26: Belinda worships her own reflection in the mirror. Eves first act isto fixate on her image in a pool of water.

II.123-42: Satan and his fallen cronies suffer in a lake of burning sulphur.Ariel threatens the sylphs with a sea of burning chocolate.

II.123-42: Satan journeys through Chaos to Earth. The sylphs descendOrb in Orb around Belinda, awaiting the birth of fate.

III.143-46: The angels withdraw after the fall. Ariel with a sigh retired afterBelindas heart beats for the Baron. Falling in love is like the Fall. Thesylphs merge the action of Satan and the good angels.

III.152, note.

IV.9: rage, resentment, and despair, exactly like Adam and Eve.

Like Adam and Eve, Belinda exercises free will: eating the fruit vs. falling inlove.

POINT: Such allusions are fun, but they suggest that a darker atmospherelies beneath the shiny surface, and this in turn suggests seriouscommentary.


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What does Thalestris represent?

IV.89ff.

Thalestris represents pruderyfemale

victory at all costs.

See 1882/336, note: she is named for a

queen of the Amazons, thus fiercely

militant.

Coquettes who dont get married become

prudes in the universe of this poem.


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What does Clarissa represent?

V.9ff.

Clarissa: the life cycle, marriage, the antithesisof prudery, graciousness in the face of loss anddeath.

She mentions sobering elements: small pox,housewifery, old age.

Virtue > beauty: Clarissa urges Belinda toembrace the life cycle, no longer to dwell on

appearances. Note that Clarissa presents the weapon to the

Baron at III.127ff.


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Maynard Mack: Constructive

Renunciation By renouncing the exterior false Paradises the true one

within is won; by acknowledging his weakness manlearns his strengths; by subordinating himself to thewhole he finds his real importance in it. Renunciation in

this sense, conceived not as stagnation of the spirit but[as] redirection toward its truest ends, is a ruling principlewith Pope. It appears in the Essay on Criticism, where itis the foundation of all the qualifications specified forcritics: we excel by giving upnot only what is

inappropriate to the individual self but what isinappropriate to man as man.

POINT: This is the kind of position that Clarissacounsels Belinda to embrace.


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Question

So what is the moral of this story?

How does what you now believe differ

from what you wrote at the beginning of

the period?

Take 60 seconds to write your answer.


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Summary of the Poems Argument

Belinda (a virgin)is a coquette (sylphs) who falls in love with the Baron (a loss of mentalvirginityparallel to the fall in PLthat causesthe sylphs to depart)which leads to a

psychomachia between prudery (denial of love,gnomes, Thalestris) and marriage (love, life as awife, Clarissa).

In other words, a coquette becomes a prudeif she forever refuses mens advances. Inorder to become a full woman, a female mustgive up her role as virgin: that is what Popespoem is suggesting.


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Short Version

Virgincoquettefall in love prude or wife(sylphs) (Baron) (Thalestris/gnomes or

Clarissa)

Belindas

choice

END

pope's rape of the lock

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