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The Rape Of The Lock : Mock Epic Poem/Heroic Comical Poem
Heroic or Epic poems, according to Maynard Meck, are poems like the Odyssey , the Aeneid , and Paradise Lost
dealing with man in his exalted aspects. Their action is weighty, their personagesare dignified and their style is elevated.The Iliad, for example, deals with the tough and prolonged battle between the Greek and theTrojan Heroes, while the Odyssey describes the adventures of Odysseus, one of the Greek kingsin the war of Troy. Similarly, Virgil’s Aeneid deals with the adventures of Aeneas and ends withthe hero’s finding his divinely ordained destiny as the founder of the Roman Empire. MiltonParadise Lost represents the fall of the rebellious angles from Paradise and justifies the ways of God to man. In all the epics, gods and daemons, take active part in human affairs and guide thedestiny of their chosen participants. The mock-epic is a poetic form which uses the epic structurebut on a miniature scale and has a subject that is mean and trivial. The purpose of the mock-epicor mock-heroic poem is satirical. The writer makes the subject look ridiculous by placing it in aframework entirely inappropriate to its importance. Pope’s description of the Rape of the Lock asa mock-heroic poem misled some readers into thinking that the comic attack was intendedagainst heroic-poetry. In fact, a mock-heroic poem is not a satire on poetry itself, but the target of the attack may be a person or persons, an institution or institutions or the whole society. Thesubject of such a poem is trivial or unimportant, but the treatment of the subject is heroic or epicand such exaggeration of the trivial naturally arouses laughter. The pleasure of the poem, as IanJack points out, ensues from “
comparing small men to giants and making pygmies of them in the process
”. A mock-epic parodies the epic in the sense of which
Dr. Johnson described parody as“a kind of writing in which the word of an author or his thoughts are taken and by a light changeare adapted to some new purpose
.” Pope was fully conscious of his intentions to make TheRape of the Lock a mock-epic poem is evident from the title he has given it. Homer’s Iliad whichdescribes the events arising out of Helen’s elopement with a Trojan prince, Paris and thesubsequent war between the Greeks and the Trojans can be appropriately described as a poemdealing with the “Rape of Helen”. That is how the Greeks took this whole episode. The title of Pope’s poem, The Rape of the Lock is thus a parody of the Iliad in this sense; for in this poem,the mighty contest ensues from the rape or assault on the lock of Belinda’s hair.
The Rape of theLock
parodies the serious epics not only in it title but also in the overall structure. The poem isdivided into five cantos like the five acts of a drama. At the beginning, there is a statement of purpose and invocation to the Muse as in a serious epic. Homer, for example, begins his Iliadthus:
chilles’ wrath to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered heavenly goddess sing
Virgil declares in Aenied that “Of arms and man I sing” Milton starts his epic “Of man’s firstdisobedience to and to justify the ways of God to man” Pope imitate these conventions when hedeclares in his poem.
What dire offence from am’rous causes springs what mighty contests arise from trivial things I sing – this verse to Caryll Muse! is due This ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:Slight is the subject, but not so the praiseIf she inspire, and he approve my lays.
It is through these words that we understand that the beginning is like that of most epics.Subsequent events of the poem parody the epic structure in the similar way. The openinginvocation, the description of the heroine’s toilet, the journey to Hampton Court , the game of ombre magnified into a pitched battle all lead up to the moment when the peer produces thefatal pair of scissors, but the action of the mortals was not enough. Pope knew that in true epics
the affairs of men were aided or thwarted by the Heavenly Powers. He, therefore, added thebodies of the supernatural beings – sylphs, gnomes, nymphs and salamanders – as agents inthe story. The gods of the epic are heroic beings, but pope’s deities are tiny. Pope describes thediminutive gods of the poem as “
the light militia of the lower sky
”. Belinda screams like theHomeric poems and dashed like the characters of the great epics, but she is a mere slip of a girl.This is the ironic contrast. We find a battle drawn to combat like the Greek warriors. But it isonly a game of cards on a dressing table. We find a supernatural being who threatens hisinferiors with torture. But it is a Sylph, not Jove. The poem contains parodies of Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Spenser and Milton as well as reminiscences of Catallus, Ovid and the Bible. There areseveral instances of Burlesque-treatment. There is Belinda’s voyage to Hampton Court whichsuggests the voyage of Aeneas up to the Tiber in Virgil. There is a coffee party which is a parodyof the meals frequency described in Homer. The combat at the end recalls the fighting which isfound anywhere in the ancient epics. The Cave of Spleen is a parody of an allegorical picture,examples of which may be found in poets like Spenser. Just before the cutting of the lock, when Ariel searches out the close recess of the virgin’s thoughts. There he finds an earthly lover lurking in her heart, and Pope tells us that Ariel retires with a sigh, resigned to fate. This situationechoes the moment in Paradise Lost when after the fall of Adam and Eve, the Angles of Godretire mute and sad to heaven. The angles could have protected Adam and Even against Satan,but man’s own free choice of will they are as helpless as Ariel and his comrades are in the faceof Belinda’s free choice of earthly lover. An outstanding mock-heroic in the poem is thecomparison between arming of an epic hero and Belinda’s dressing herself and using cosmeticsin order to kill. Pope describes a society-lady in terms that would suit the arming of a warrior like Achilles. The Rape of the Lock is a poem ridiculing the fashionable world of Pope’s day. Butthere are several occasions when we feel that the epic world of homer and Virgil has in this poembeen scaled down, wittily and affectionately, to admit the coffee-table and the fashionable lady’sbed-chamber.
Supernatural Machinery
: In all epics, god and daemons, whether pagan or Christian, participatein the action side by side with the human agents. In an epic poem, as Le Bossu had emphasized,“the machine crowns the whole work” Pope, therefore, gives a mock dignity to the action of theRape of the Lock by the use of machinery of sylphs and gnomes. Taken from the Rosicruciancult, which Bayle had described as the “sect of mountebanks”, the sylphs and gnomes reduce thedivine and demonic agents of an epic poem to their diminutive status. Unlike the deities of theepics, who act guardian agents of the epic heroes, Belinda’s guardian sylph, Ariel is anineffectual/airy being who deserts her at the most critical moment. The supernatural machinery of the poem thus provides a gentle mockery of the epic deities and increases the charm of the poemas a mock-heroic.
The Epic Style
: Within this framework, The Rape of the Lock contains many allusions to Homer,Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare. Ariel’s description of the metamorphosis of a prudish woman intoa sylph –
Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive And love of Ombre, after death survive
–is a direct parody of Aeneid in Dryden’s translation;
The love of horses which they had, alive, And care of chariots, after death survive.
Though the subject-matter of the Rape of the Lock is trivial and ridiculous, the style, diction andversification are rarely so. The diction is exalted throughout, the heroic-couplets are carefullypolished and chiseled and the classical device of periphrasis is frequently resorted to. The veryopening line of The Rape of the Lock –
What dire/my lays
could very well open a serious epic. Atthe end of Canto II, one notices a similar elevation of style:
What time would spare, from steel receives it dates And moments like men submit to fate! Steel cou’d the labour of the gods destroy, And strike to dust the’ imperial tow’rs of Troy
The rhetoric style is the same that occurs in epic poetry. The Mock-heroic effect is produced bythe context which emphasizes that the invincible “steel” referred to here is the steel of the pair of scissors with which the Baron cuts off Belinda’s lock.
But when to mischief mortals bend their will,How soon they find fit instruments of ill! Just ‘hen, Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edged weapon from her shining case.
The use of the periphrases – “two-edged weapon”, “glittering Forfex” and the fatal engine for atiny pair of scissors.
Collateral of the Great with the Little
: A mock-epic or mock-heroic in the Augustan sense of theterm in itself is an example of the collation of the great with the little. In the Rape of the Lock,Pope frequently juxtaposes the heroic with the trivial to produce the mock-epic effect. The veryopening couplet juxtaposes “Mighty contest” with trivial things”. Elsewhere, Pope achieves thiseffect by reducing the great to the level of the trivial.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,Or some frail China jar receive a flaw,Or stain her honour, or hew brocade,Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,Or lose her heart, or a necklace, at a ball;Or whether Heaven has doom’d that Shock must fall.
In these three couplets, chastity is equated with ‘frail China jar’ honor with new brocade, rayer with a masquerade, heart with a necklace. The effect of this collation is highly amusingand startling. The confusion of values which informs Belinda’s world could not have beenpresented in a way better than this juxtaposing of the great with the little.
Conclusion
: All these devices make The Rape of the Lock a highly subtle and complex mock-epic. Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe appears rather simple and straightforward when compared withPope’s poem. In the Rape of the Lock, however, satire is mixed with genuine charm whichsurrounds Belinda, Is central figure. Pope does not deny the charm and glamour and the artificialworld she presides over. In her barge over Thames, she is genuinely fascinated fascinating andremains so in the rest of the poem. It is only when one notices that this brilliance and gaiety are atthe expense of something much more important that they appear to be trivial and hollow.Belinda’s description in the second Canto is both a genuine admiration for her beauty and charmand a mild criticism of her pride and coquetry.
On her white breast a sparking cross she wore,Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;Oft she rejects, but never once offends.Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And like the sun, they shine on all alike.
The Rape of the Lock is a nearly perfect example of its genre, the genre of the mock-epic not onlybecause it parodies the epic conventions and devices throughout, but also because it provides ahighly amusing drama of its own rights. The greatness of the poem is due to Pope’s genius aswell as to the care and pains he took in a different form. The balance between the concealedirony and the assumed gravity is as nicely trimmed as the balance of power in Europe. The littleis made great and the great little. You hardly know whether to laugh or weep. It is the triumph of insignificance of foppery and folly. It is the perfection of the mock-heroic.
Heroic or Epic poems, according to Maynard Meck, are poems like the Odyssey , the Aeneid , and Paradise Lost
dealing with man in his exalted aspects. Their action is weighty, their personagesare dignified and their style is elevated.The Iliad, for example, deals with the tough and prolonged battle between the Greek and theTrojan Heroes, while the Odyssey describes the adventures of Odysseus, one of the Greek kingsin the war of Troy. Similarly, Virgil’s Aeneid deals with the adventures of Aeneas and ends withthe hero’s finding his divinely ordained destiny as the founder of the Roman Empire. MiltonParadise Lost represents the fall of the rebellious angles from Paradise and justifies the ways of God to man. In all the epics, gods and daemons, take active part in human affairs and guide thedestiny of their chosen participants. The mock-epic is a poetic form which uses the epic structurebut on a miniature scale and has a subject that is mean and trivial. The purpose of the mock-epicor mock-heroic poem is satirical. The writer makes the subject look ridiculous by placing it in aframework entirely inappropriate to its importance. Pope’s description of the Rape of the Lock asa mock-heroic poem misled some readers into thinking that the comic attack was intendedagainst heroic-poetry. In fact, a mock-heroic poem is not a satire on poetry itself, but the target of the attack may be a person or persons, an institution or institutions or the whole society. Thesubject of such a poem is trivial or unimportant, but the treatment of the subject is heroic or epicand such exaggeration of the trivial naturally arouses laughter. The pleasure of the poem, as IanJack points out, ensues from “
comparing small men to giants and making pygmies of them in the process
”. A mock-epic parodies the epic in the sense of which
Dr. Johnson described parody as“a kind of writing in which the word of an author or his thoughts are taken and by a light changeare adapted to some new purpose
.” Pope was fully conscious of his intentions to make TheRape of the Lock a mock-epic poem is evident from the title he has given it. Homer’s Iliad whichdescribes the events arising out of Helen’s elopement with a Trojan prince, Paris and thesubsequent war between the Greeks and the Trojans can be appropriately described as a poemdealing with the “Rape of Helen”. That is how the Greeks took this whole episode. The title of Pope’s poem, The Rape of the Lock is thus a parody of the Iliad in this sense; for in this poem,the mighty contest ensues from the rape or assault on the lock of Belinda’s hair.
The Rape of theLock
parodies the serious epics not only in it title but also in the overall structure. The poem isdivided into five cantos like the five acts of a drama. At the beginning, there is a statement of purpose and invocation to the Muse as in a serious epic. Homer, for example, begins his Iliadthus:
chilles’ wrath to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered heavenly goddess sing
Virgil declares in Aenied that “Of arms and man I sing” Milton starts his epic “Of man’s firstdisobedience to and to justify the ways of God to man” Pope imitate these conventions when hedeclares in his poem.
What dire offence from am’rous causes springs what mighty contests arise from trivial things I sing – this verse to Caryll Muse! is due This ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:Slight is the subject, but not so the praiseIf she inspire, and he approve my lays.
It is through these words that we understand that the beginning is like that of most epics.Subsequent events of the poem parody the epic structure in the similar way. The openinginvocation, the description of the heroine’s toilet, the journey to Hampton Court , the game of ombre magnified into a pitched battle all lead up to the moment when the peer produces thefatal pair of scissors, but the action of the mortals was not enough. Pope knew that in true epics
the affairs of men were aided or thwarted by the Heavenly Powers. He, therefore, added thebodies of the supernatural beings – sylphs, gnomes, nymphs and salamanders – as agents inthe story. The gods of the epic are heroic beings, but pope’s deities are tiny. Pope describes thediminutive gods of the poem as “
the light militia of the lower sky
”. Belinda screams like theHomeric poems and dashed like the characters of the great epics, but she is a mere slip of a girl.This is the ironic contrast. We find a battle drawn to combat like the Greek warriors. But it isonly a game of cards on a dressing table. We find a supernatural being who threatens hisinferiors with torture. But it is a Sylph, not Jove. The poem contains parodies of Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Spenser and Milton as well as reminiscences of Catallus, Ovid and the Bible. There areseveral instances of Burlesque-treatment. There is Belinda’s voyage to Hampton Court whichsuggests the voyage of Aeneas up to the Tiber in Virgil. There is a coffee party which is a parodyof the meals frequency described in Homer. The combat at the end recalls the fighting which isfound anywhere in the ancient epics. The Cave of Spleen is a parody of an allegorical picture,examples of which may be found in poets like Spenser. Just before the cutting of the lock, when Ariel searches out the close recess of the virgin’s thoughts. There he finds an earthly lover lurking in her heart, and Pope tells us that Ariel retires with a sigh, resigned to fate. This situationechoes the moment in Paradise Lost when after the fall of Adam and Eve, the Angles of Godretire mute and sad to heaven. The angles could have protected Adam and Even against Satan,but man’s own free choice of will they are as helpless as Ariel and his comrades are in the faceof Belinda’s free choice of earthly lover. An outstanding mock-heroic in the poem is thecomparison between arming of an epic hero and Belinda’s dressing herself and using cosmeticsin order to kill. Pope describes a society-lady in terms that would suit the arming of a warrior like Achilles. The Rape of the Lock is a poem ridiculing the fashionable world of Pope’s day. Butthere are several occasions when we feel that the epic world of homer and Virgil has in this poembeen scaled down, wittily and affectionately, to admit the coffee-table and the fashionable lady’sbed-chamber.
Supernatural Machinery
: In all epics, god and daemons, whether pagan or Christian, participatein the action side by side with the human agents. In an epic poem, as Le Bossu had emphasized,“the machine crowns the whole work” Pope, therefore, gives a mock dignity to the action of theRape of the Lock by the use of machinery of sylphs and gnomes. Taken from the Rosicruciancult, which Bayle had described as the “sect of mountebanks”, the sylphs and gnomes reduce thedivine and demonic agents of an epic poem to their diminutive status. Unlike the deities of theepics, who act guardian agents of the epic heroes, Belinda’s guardian sylph, Ariel is anineffectual/airy being who deserts her at the most critical moment. The supernatural machinery of the poem thus provides a gentle mockery of the epic deities and increases the charm of the poemas a mock-heroic.
The Epic Style
: Within this framework, The Rape of the Lock contains many allusions to Homer,Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare. Ariel’s description of the metamorphosis of a prudish woman intoa sylph –
Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive And love of Ombre, after death survive
–is a direct parody of Aeneid in Dryden’s translation;
The love of horses which they had, alive, And care of chariots, after death survive.
Though the subject-matter of the Rape of the Lock is trivial and ridiculous, the style, diction andversification are rarely so. The diction is exalted throughout, the heroic-couplets are carefullypolished and chiseled and the classical device of periphrasis is frequently resorted to. The veryopening line of The Rape of the Lock –
What dire/my lays
could very well open a serious epic. Atthe end of Canto II, one notices a similar elevation of style:
What time would spare, from steel receives it dates And moments like men submit to fate! Steel cou’d the labour of the gods destroy, And strike to dust the’ imperial tow’rs of Troy
The rhetoric style is the same that occurs in epic poetry. The Mock-heroic effect is produced bythe context which emphasizes that the invincible “steel” referred to here is the steel of the pair of scissors with which the Baron cuts off Belinda’s lock.
But when to mischief mortals bend their will,How soon they find fit instruments of ill! Just ‘hen, Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edged weapon from her shining case.
The use of the periphrases – “two-edged weapon”, “glittering Forfex” and the fatal engine for atiny pair of scissors.
Collateral of the Great with the Little
: A mock-epic or mock-heroic in the Augustan sense of theterm in itself is an example of the collation of the great with the little. In the Rape of the Lock,Pope frequently juxtaposes the heroic with the trivial to produce the mock-epic effect. The veryopening couplet juxtaposes “Mighty contest” with trivial things”. Elsewhere, Pope achieves thiseffect by reducing the great to the level of the trivial.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,Or some frail China jar receive a flaw,Or stain her honour, or hew brocade,Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,Or lose her heart, or a necklace, at a ball;Or whether Heaven has doom’d that Shock must fall.
In these three couplets, chastity is equated with ‘frail China jar’ honor with new brocade, rayer with a masquerade, heart with a necklace. The effect of this collation is highly amusingand startling. The confusion of values which informs Belinda’s world could not have beenpresented in a way better than this juxtaposing of the great with the little.
Conclusion
: All these devices make The Rape of the Lock a highly subtle and complex mock-epic. Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe appears rather simple and straightforward when compared withPope’s poem. In the Rape of the Lock, however, satire is mixed with genuine charm whichsurrounds Belinda, Is central figure. Pope does not deny the charm and glamour and the artificialworld she presides over. In her barge over Thames, she is genuinely fascinated fascinating andremains so in the rest of the poem. It is only when one notices that this brilliance and gaiety are atthe expense of something much more important that they appear to be trivial and hollow.Belinda’s description in the second Canto is both a genuine admiration for her beauty and charmand a mild criticism of her pride and coquetry.
On her white breast a sparking cross she wore,Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;Oft she rejects, but never once offends.Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And like the sun, they shine on all alike.
The Rape of the Lock is a nearly perfect example of its genre, the genre of the mock-epic not onlybecause it parodies the epic conventions and devices throughout, but also because it provides ahighly amusing drama of its own rights. The greatness of the poem is due to Pope’s genius aswell as to the care and pains he took in a different form. The balance between the concealedirony and the assumed gravity is as nicely trimmed as the balance of power in Europe. The littleis made great and the great little. You hardly know whether to laugh or weep. It is the triumph of insignificance of foppery and folly. It is the perfection of the mock-heroic.