Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Rape of The Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem by Alexander Pope that was published in five cantos (parts) during the years 1712 to 1714. The first two cantos were published anonymously in May 1712 and the complete poem with five cantos was republished in March 1714 that mentioned Alexander Pope as the writer. It is a long mock-heroic narrative poem with 794 lines in total. The first canto consists of 148 lines. The whole poem is written in heroic couplets mostly arranged in iambic pentameter. Alexander Pope’s The Rape of The Lock, and Samuel Butler’s Hudibras are considered the finest examples of high burlesques, or mockery.
The term ‘Lock’ in the title represents one of the hair locks of Belinda which are so lucrative that they can bring the destruction of Mankind, that is, the male folk. The term ‘rape’ in the title doesn’t mean sexual rape, but it holds the older meaning of the word derived from the Latin word rapere which means to rob, to grab, to carry off, or to snatch. However, it is a mock-heroic satirical poem that involves exaggeration. Alexander Pope exaggerates the act of cutting off a lock of hair of Belinda in Canto II and equates it with a man taking advantage of a woman’s innocence and hence, adds up a theme of sexual violation.
The main plot of the poem was based on a real incident involving Arabella Fermor and her suitor Lord Robert Petre who both belonged to two Aristocratic recusant families. A minor dispute over a mischievous act by Robert Petre became a huge issue that led to the dissolution of his engagement with Arabella. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the whole Catholic community of England was facing difficulties under the laws like the Test Act. During such a period, this minor incident became the reason for a huge dispute between two of the major English Catholic families. John Caryll who was the second Jacobite Baron of Durford witnessed the incident between Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre. He commissioned Pope to turn the incident into a jest in the hope that it would encourage reconciliation between the two families. Pope mixed the heroic world with the social to depict the anomalies, juxtapositions, ironies, and hypocrisy of the current society. Pope tears off the sophisticated mask of the 18th-century people denuding their ugly faces by presenting serious topics through giggles and thus, made the audience of his time laughing at their own follies.
Characters of The Rape of The Lock Canto 1
Belinda is the heroine of The Rape of The Lock. She is a young, beautiful, foppish girl belonging to a rich family. Pope based this character on Arabella Fermor, the daughter of an aristocratic Catholic family. She was engaged to her beau Robert Petre who snipped a lock of her hair without permission, thereby causing a rift between their two families that resulted in the dissolution of engagement of Arabella with Robert. Pope depicts this incident in the poem. The Baron is based on Robert Petre. He is an admirer of Belinda who desires her. He cuts off a lock of her hair in a mischievous act that fills Belinda with rage and anger. Caryll is a member of the party, he is mentioned only once, and he is the dedicatee of the poem. “Caryll” is John Caryll, a friend of Pope’s who commissioned Pope to turn the incident into a jest. Clarissa is a woman attendant at the Hampton court party where the incident took place. She helped the Baron in cutting off the hair lock by lending her sewing scissors to the Baron. Later on, she tries to calm Belinda down and sermonizes on the ephemeral nature of beauty and the importance of good sense once a woman’s looks have faded. Ariel is Belinda’s guardian Sylph. His task is to protect the coquettish virgin girls with the aid of an army of Sylphs. The character of Ariel is based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Brillante is a sylph assigned to guard Belinda’s earrings, sylph Momentilla guards her watch, while Crispissa guards her favorite hair locks. Umbriel is a mischievous Gnome who instigates Belinda and intensifies her despair at the loss of her hair. Thalestris is a friend of Belinda who convinces Belinda to take revenge on the Baron for his action against her honor. Pope took her name from an Amazonian Queen of Greek mythology. Sir Plume is Thaletris’ beau. Betty is a maid-servant of Belinda and Shock is her lapdog.
Summary of The Rape of The Lock First Canto:
Lines 1-31
Alexander Pope begins his mock epic with an outlining of the subject of the poem.
“What dire offenses from am’rous causes springs,
What mighty contest rise from trivial things,”
Pope suggests that love and war are correlated to each other because love gives birth to cruel contests that often turn into bloody wars. The lust and amorous feelings of men often lead to dire consequences. Then following the classical approach of Greek authors, he invokes his muse for the poem which is the goddess of art and poetry to bless this verse, but unlike the classical authors (and Milton in Paradise Lost) he doesn’t name his muse. Pope requests the goddess muse to help him gain the approval of both Caryl, and Belinda (John Caryl and Arabella Fermor) for this poem as he knows that despite the subject being trivial, his efforts have turned it into an epic that will bring praise and fame. He then brings forth the dispute and wonders what made a well-bred and educated lord (Robert Petre) offend his beloved through mischief and what made Belinda reject his love?
Pope then expertly describes a common day of a young female of an upper-middle-class family in England mockingly as if the female is a goddess or an important warrior.
He describes the beauty of Belinda and says that as Sol (the sun) rises, it drops the light rays into the room of Belinda through the white curtain in a nervous manner as if the sun is worried and doesn’t want to disturb the sleeping beauty. As Belinda opens up her eyes, they shine more than the sun itself. It is midday and Belinda, her lapdogs also wake up. Pope calls her sleepless lover who woke up exactly at 12 noon. She pushes her handbell thrice to call the servants but none appear and hence, she falls back to the pillow and sleeps again. She then has a dream in which a handsome young man appears in the most fashionable dress. Belinda finds him more attractive than a suitor and blushes as he reaches near. The young man whispers in her ear that a beautiful girl like Belinda must be protected against the airy elves. The young man is the guardian Sylph of Belinda who asks her if she has heard of the fairies and angels who live in the air and appear in dark places on a full-moon night.
Lines 32-64
The handsome man of Belinda’s dream further mentions the fairies that keep silver pennies in the shoes of young beautiful girls at night or those who dance on the green grass. The young man, who is the guardian Slyph of Belinda says that if she ever believed in such fairies and angels, which of course are true and real, visit virtuous damsels with golden crowns and garlands of flowers, then she must know her impressive worth and should protect her virtuous self. The Sylph advises Belinda not to bow down to earthly desires that can bring filth to her virtuous self. The young man then reveals some secrets that are known only to innocent children and are kept away from grown-up adult men. He says that the angels and fairies he is talking about were living beautiful women in the past who died in this world but their desires and vanities remained and became the reason for their ‘afterlife.’ He then classifies the angels into groups and says that when a proud beautiful woman dies, she dissolves into the five elements of the Earth. A violent and quarrelsome woman turns into a salamander as they represent fire. The emotional women with soft hearts become nymphs in their afterlife while the serious-minded women turn into gnomes and roam on earth to continue their mischievous acts.
Lines 65-105
The guardian Sylph of Belinda continues to describe the afterlife of beautiful women who die and says that when a light-hearted flirtatious girl dies, she turns into a sylph with a duty to protect the virtue of virgin flirtatious girls who have rejected all love affairs. He then defines the sylphs and their powers and says that a sylph is beyond the limits of human beings as they can take any shape and sex they prefer anytime. These sylphs protect the weak, coquettish girls from falling into the charms of seductive men at parties, country balls, and masked dances. They protect the girls from the seductive gazes of young lovers during their weak phase when they find themselves in such situations that tempt them for male companionship. The young man says that all intelligent people know that sylphs protect virgin beautiful girls while men safeguard themselves for their self-respect. He says that sylphs often face the challenge of gnomes who continue to play their mischievous acts on young girls who are proud of their beauty and vanity. Gnomes tempt such girls, pump their pride and vanity and make them believe that some young handsome lord will sacrifice all his wealth and self for their love and will address them with the utmost respect, calling them ‘Your Grace.’
The young man of Belinda’s dream then says that the sylphs not only protect virgin girls against seductive mischievous men, but they also help them in the most difficult puzzles of fashion the girls often face. Moreover, these sylphs continue to change their shape to offer entertainment to these coquettish young girls and don’t allow them to settle for any handsome man and lose their virginity to him. He says that a virgin girl will never lose her virginity if she continues to attain gazes from a better man every time she finds a good man interested in her. So if a girl falls for Florio’s charm, a sylph will take the shape of Damon to attract her towards himself. Thus, the continuous interchange of one option to the better one is the tricks of the sylphs to protect the young virgin coquettish girls who never stop flirting with the new attractive man.
Lines 106-148
The sylph then introduces himself in the 106th line as Ariel who is the guardian of Belinda as he must protect her against any danger to her virtuous coquettish self. He says that since the sylphs are spirits of high air, he could see something untoward is coming in near future and thus, he came to inform and warn Belinda. He says that though he doesn’t know how and when something deeply wrong will happen in her life if she doesn’t remain alert. He requests her to keep her guard at all moments and remain away from men. Ariel is interrupted as Shock, the lapdog of Belinda licks up her chin and she wakes up. Ariel soon vanishes as Belinda notices a love letter sent by some of her lovers in which he praises her angelic beauty and confesses how he has been engrossed by her thoughts. Belinda soon forgets her dream and the warning by Ariel and moves to her toilet.
Her toilet is very extravagant and grandiose with silver pots and shining mirrors. It is so clean and spotless that deities roman in the toilet. She wears a beautiful white dress without a headdress and sees herself in the mirror with pride. She bends her body as her eyes are raised to see her image in the mirror. It appears as if she is worshipping the toilet deities like a high priestess. Her maidservant betty is standing behind her and she feels nervous like an inferior priestess who doesn’t want anything to go wrong as that will bring the wrath of the high priestess towards her. Belinda engages in the highly prestigious ritual of her make-up as betty opens up the various caskets containing cosmetic items collected from all over the world. One casket contains glorious gems and jewels from India while the other contains perfume from Arabia. There are some combs made of tortoise shells while some milky white combs are carved from ivory. One of the caskets contains shining pins, puffs, powders, patches, a bible, and love letters. Belinda adorns the shiny pins on her beautiful dress, uses puffs and powder on her skin, and glares at the love letters with interest. She is preparing herself for the party that she has to attend where there will be male folk. She is unaware but the sylphs are observing her, protecting her, and assisting her in getting ready for the unknown challenge that she has to face, about which, Ariel warned her. She is preparing herself like a warrior princess equipping herself with all sorts of weapons before raging to the battleground. As her toilet ritual completes, she appears more like a divine beauty. She shines and appears more attractive with much more captivating charms. The blushes on her cheeks show all the wonders of her face while her eyelashes flash as bright as the lightning in the sky. The army of sylphs guarding her are all assisting her as some set her hair, some others take care of the sleeves of her dress, while some sylphs are taking care of her petticoat and the plaits of her gown. Though the sylphs diligently contributed to her rituals, Betty takes all the credit away.
Analysis of Rape of The Lock Canto 1
Pope used mock-heroic elements throughout Canto 1 right from the beginning. He invokes the unnamed muse at the beginning and then expresses variating deities interfering in the lives of human beings as happens in Greek epics. He presents the central issue of the poem in an epic manner. Then he satirizes the daily routine of women of the 18th century while mocking their passions in a mock-heroic pattern. He continues to offer satirical juxtaposition and shows how the people of those times gave more importance to foppery than religion. Imagery has been used to perfection. Belinda’s glamorous makes the sun tremble while ‘the sacred rites of pride’ offers an image of some religious ritual. Pope uses Hyperbole while describing the beauty of Belinda and he personifies many inanimate things. Anaphora has been used in the beginning lines while Alliteration has also been used in many instances. Pope mentions women’s whims as a toyshop which is a metaphor.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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