the rape of the lock

The Rape of the Lock


History of mankind records some indomitable personalities who challenged all the odds of life andstood majestic outshining even the most blessed. Alexander Pope is next to none in this regard.

Alexander Pope was born in a ‘Recusant’ family during the most powerful dominance of‘Anglicanism’ in England.

This made the doors of mainstream educational institutions like Oxford and Cambridge closed forhim and he had to educate himself in the inferior(illegal) institutions for lump-some educationspecially built for the ‘Recusant’.

[To the Recusants education was not for learning but for getting a --------]

A Childhood disease known today as ‘Pott’s Disease’, a type of ‘Bone-Tuberculosis’ gave him adeformed psyche and left him with stunted height, a curved spine, and ill health for the rest of his life.

His body did not grow properly. He was only 4ft 6 inches tall. He could not stand in his feet withoutthe assistance of somebody.

But his physical paucity was supplanted by a very keen intelligence and a sense of understandingthings.(Common sense)


Physical deformity and social restrictions gavePope a caustic vision of life.

He developed a satiric bent of mind and gotinspired by both Horace and Juvenal.

Pope reached the zenith of his career with hisliterary criticism, his heroic and satiric poetry.

His heroi-comic epic ‘The Rape of the Lock’ is aclass in itself.

He is the third most frequently quoted Englishpoet after Shakespeare and Tennyson.

Pope died on 30 May 1744.


Pope’s Career as a writer:

Alexander Pope began his career as a poet. His first four poems established his position as a great Englishpoet of 18th century.

1.Poetry

i.Essay on Criticism: It was a poem on the ethics of Criticism. It was published anonymously on 15th May,1711.It enumerates the quality and concepts of an ideal Poet. To Pope, an Ideal poet is also an ideal Man

ii. Rape of the Lock: Rape of the Lock was Pope’s best achievement as a poet. He called it a heroi-comicepic. It was a social satire written in the line of Juvenile. Pope used a trivial real story of ‘Stealing a lock ofhair’ of a fashionable lady by an adventurous Baron that aroused severe social problems. Pope exploredClassical and Mythological elements like Milton’s Paradise lost to give the poem a flavor of true ‘Mock-epic’ poem.

iii. The Dunciad and Moral Essays: The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Pope. It’s a

Horatian satire published first in 1728 anonymously. Here Pope satirized a host of his

contemporary writers along with Theobald, his rival. It was a caustic attack. It pilloried a

host of “hacks”, “scribblers” and “dunces”. The publication was said to be the greatest folly

of his life. “It bore bitter fruit. It brought the poet in his own time the hostility of its victims

and their sympathizers ,who pursued him impeachably from then on with a few damaging

truthe and a host of slanders and lies------”.

Moral Essays: Pope published his Moral Essays ,a series of four poems on moral topics in

between 1731 and 1735.


2.Translations and editions:-

•1 Translation of the Iliad

•2 Translation of the Odyssey

•3 Edition of Shakespeare's works

3.Literary Criticism:

1.Peri Bathous, Or the art of Sinking in Poetry

2.The Prologue to the Satires


What is a satire?

Ans: Satire originated from Latin Satura. It is a literary device in which humor, exaggeration or

ridicule is used to bring to the forefront an individual or societal vice, folly, abuse or shortcoming. Its

purpose is to shine a light on the subject and invoke correction. Its greater purpose is often

constructive social criticism, using wit and humour to draw attention to both individual and wider

social issues.

What is a heroic poem?

Ans. A Heroic poem is a poem written in an epic style using lines of iambic pentameter. [the free

Dictionary]


What is an epic?

Ans. An epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language,celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero. e,g: Iliad; Mahabharata;Paradise Lost.[online Dictionary]

What is a mock –epic?

Ans. Mock-epic, also called mock-heroic, is a form of satire that adapts theelevated heroic style of the classical epic poem to a trivial subject. The tradition,originated in classical times with an anonymous burlesque of Homer, theBatrachomyomachia (Battle of the Frogs and the Mice) [Encyclopedia Britannica]


What is a Mock-heroic epic or ‘heroi-comic epic’poem?

Ans. The kind of poetic parody that flourished during the neo-classical period

is known as mock-heroic poetry. A mock-heroic poetry mocks the

conventions of heroic (also known as epic) poetry. It does so by taking the

elevated, 'heroic' language of epic poetry and using it to tell rather ordinary

(sometimes dull) stories. In other words, mock-heroic poetry uses the same

style as heroic poetry, but the content of the poetry is entirely

trivial.[www.study.com]


Rape of the Lock:-

i.Context :‘The Rape of the Lock’ is a great mock-epic in English, written on the model of

Boileau's Le Lutrin. Alexander Pope published its first version in 1712, when he was

only 23 .The source of the poem was an actual incident among Pope’s acquaintances in

which Robert Lord Petre, cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor’s hair, and the young

people’s families fell into strife as a result. John Caryll, another member of this same

circle of prominent Roman Catholics also called ‘Recusants’, asked Pope to write a

light poem to reconcile the two families. The poem was revised two times. The final

version came in 1717. In this later version he added the “machinery,” the retinue of

supernaturals who influence the action as well as the moral of the tale.


iii.Summary: Pope’s ‘heroi-comic’ epic is a social satire. The action completes inone single day in the life of fashionable recusants of London. Belinda gets up frombed at about noon and spends a few hours in ‘denting and painting’. She has to takepart in a card game named ‘Ombre’ at Hampton Court Palace. She along with anumber of young men and ladies undertake a boat journey in the river Tames toreach the destination in the north Bank. Ariel, the divine angel guesses some evil tohappen on Belinda and engages his troop of Sylphs to guard Belinda’s possessionsand honour. An adventurous youth Robert,Lord Petre is determined to stealBelinda’s tempting ‘Locks’ of hair. In the card game Belinda wins. This makes theBaron more adamant. Clarisse hands over a pair of scissors to the Baron. The Baronstealthily cuts a lock from of hair from Belinda’s head. (Cont---)


Discovering the theft, Belinda becomes utterly sorry. Clarisse tries to mollify herbut fails. A gnome named Umbriel descends to the Underworld on Belinda’s behalfand obtains a bag of sighs and a vial of tears from the Queen of Spleen. With thesemagical gifts, he means to comfort poor Belinda. Grief overcomes her as her eyeshalf-drown in tears and her head droops upon her bosom. She resolves to fightagainst the Baron. She attacks the Baron with snuff and hair-pin etc. A fearfulcombat ensues. During the fight, the Baron loses the Lock. So he fails to return it.

The poem, however, ends with a note of consolation to Belinda that her golden‘Lock’ must have formed a constellation in the sky.

Style and Rhyme: Pope wrote The Rape of the Lock in heroic couplets. A heroiccouplet is a unit of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter. The entire poemconsists of one heroic couplet followed by another,


i.Objective Questions & Answers:

i.Juvenalian satires are also called Menippean satire: True/False.

Ans. True

ii.‘The Rape of the lock’ was first published anonymously in Lintot’s ‘Miscellaneous Poems and Translations i. 1712 in two cantos(334) lines: True/False

Ans. True

iii. How many versions of ‘The Rape of the Lock’ were published by Pope?

Ans.3

iv. What was the addition in final version of ‘The Rape of the Lock’?

Ans. Clarissa’s speech on good humour.

v. Who was Pope’s Muse in ‘The Rape of the Lock’?

Ans.John Carryl


xi.Who was to guard ‘Shock’?

Ans.Ariel

xii.Who was Ariel?

Ans.Ariel was the chief of the Sylphs.

xiii. How many Sylphs were engaged to guard Belinda’s body and petticoat?

Ans.50

xiv. Who was engaged to guard Belinda’s ‘Locks’?

Ans. Crispissa

xv. What was the usual time for the fashionable youths to get up from bed?

Ans. Noon


vi.Who were the protagonists in the poem?

Ans.Lord Petre and Belinda

vii.With which Belinda’s eyes were compared more than once in the poem?

Ans.The Sun

viii.Who was Shock?

Ans.The name of Belinda’s lapdog was Shock.

ix.Who was to guard Belinda’s ‘earring’?

Ans.Brillante

x.Who was to guard Belinda’s ‘wrist watch’?

Ans.Momentilla


xvi. What is a ‘Billet Doux’?

Ans. A love letter from the lady love.

xvii. What were Lord Petre’s earlier tokens of ‘Love’?

Ans. Half a pair of Gloves; three garters and a number of trophies from his former loves.

xviii. What did Petre do with all his ‘Billet Doux’?

Ans. Petre lit a Pyre with all the love tokens that he got from his earlier beloveds and prayed kneeling down before that ignited pyre.

xix. What did god grant to him?

Ans. God granted half of his prayer.

xx. Where did the youths go in a boat?

Ans.Hampton Castle Palace on the north Bank of the Tames.


xxi. What card game did they play?

Ans. Ombre

xxii. Who cut the ‘lock’ of Belinda?

Ans.The Baron ,on the third try ,cut off the coveted ‘lock’ of Belinda.

xxiii. Who was Belinda’s maid?

Ans.Betty

xxiv. What had happened to Belinda’s ‘Lock’ ultimately?

Ans. Belinda’s ‘Lock’ turned into a constellation.

xxv. Who according to Myth, becomes a Sylph after death?

Ans.A good lady like Belinda.


A Summing Up

Modern criticism of Pope focuses on the man, his circumstances and motivations,prompted by theoretical perspectives such as Marxism, feminism and other formsof post-structuralism. Brean Hammond focuses on Pope's singular achievement inmaking an independent living solely from his writing. Laura Brown (1985) adopts aMarxist approach and accuses Pope of being an apologist for the oppressive upperclasses. Hammond (1986) has studied Pope's work from the perspectives ofcultural materialism and new historicism. Along Hammond's lines, RaymondWilliams explains art as a set of practices influenced by broad cultural factorsrather than simply the vague ideas of genius alone.[4] Hayden Carruth, wrote thatit was "Pope's rationalism and pandeism with which he wrote the greatest mock-epic in English literature.“

Link: www.Wikipedia.org


Created By

Indranil Sarkar

Sapatgram College,Sapatgram

Assam,India

E-mail [email protected]

Contact: 09859945270

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