Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Wallace Stevens was an American poet who took birth on October 2, 1879, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was a law scholar from New York Law School. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his poetic collection titled Collected Poems in 1955.
His first poetic collection was titled Harmonium which was published in 1923. Harmonium contains 85 poems and one of them is Anecdote of the Jar which was first published in 1919.
Wallace Stevens was known as a symbolist philosophical poet and Anecdote of the Jar is a good example of that. It is an imagist symbolic poem in which Stevens explores if human creativity can surpass nature in some way. Stevens concludes that art can be much more beautiful than nature itself in many ways but it cannot be as creative as nature.
Structure of Anecdote of the Jar :
Anecdote of the Jar is a 12 lines long short poem composed in three stanzas written in iambic tetrameter with no specific rhyming scheme. Occasional end rhyming makes the poem interesting (hill/hill, air/everywhere/bare). The poem uses Alliteration, Assonance, Caesura, Consonance, and Enjambment. Metaphor, Personification, Symbolism, and Hyperbole. It can also be termed as an allusion to John to Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn."
Summary of Anedote of the Jar:
The poem is set in Tennessee. Just like many of his other poems, Anecdote of the Jar is very easy to understand but it can be interpreted in a myriad of ways and that makes it difficult and ambiguous. The poet describes the after story of one of his acts in past.
First Stanza
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The narrator says that he placed an ordinary jar on the top of a hill in Tennessee. The jar was round and it was manageable enough that the narrator alone could lift and take it to the top of the hill and place it. It is a man-made jar, an artificial thing, a thing of art. The jar is beautiful and makes the surrounding nature appear lacking or inferior. The perfection of the jar makes the hill look more untidy in contrast to the jar. Here, the narrator himself is observing all this. The poet uses personification, metaphors, and symbolism to suggest that the jar made it necessary for the surroundings to change for to better as the hill appears surrounded by “Slovenly Wildnerness” because of the presence of the jar. The jar represents artificial beauty, industrialization, and modernity. While the hill represents natural wilderness which appears untidy, unmanaged, and dirty. A jar is not a human, it cannot bring any change or do anything, and a jar cannot persuade, and thus the poet personifies it in the third line.
Second Stanza
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
The poet uses personification of nature and suggests that nature gets influenced by the beauty of the jar and gets animated. Nature surrenders and accepts that the jar is much better and thus, strives to change and get better, like the jar. The jar appears to be a tall leader of all natural things surrounding it as it changes the wilderness of nature to a tidiness, managed landscape. And gradually, the jar got control of all the surroundings, reducing the wilderness.
Third Stanza
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
The poet then symbolizes the change brought upon by the jar in the third stanza. The jar continues to dominate the surrounding and gradually takes control of everything natural and it becomes unnatural. The wilderness gets away as the artificial beauty takes hold of it. Everything is now tidy, managed, and ordered. The jar becomes the universal leader and then the poet notices that the jar was gray and bare, it was barren. It couldn’t give birth to a bird or bush. Now when the jar has dominion over the whole surrounding, everything in Tennessee is as barren, gray, and bare, as the jar was.
Themes of Anecdote of the Jar:
The main theme of the poem is within the imagery and symbolism. Stevens offers strong images of the order of the artificial world in form of dominating jar. The hills and surroundings are the images of the subservient nature, tamed by human intellect and cleverness. The wilderness represents adaptability of the nature that tries to attain the same order and tidiness as that of the jar. These images and symbols can be interpreted in several ways from different philosophical perspectives.
The proper place for a jar could be a kitchen with other utensils. But somehow, the jar is left behind in the wilderness, alone. Nature consequently adapts to the alienated jar, not letting it alone.
The jar represents art, which is a human endeavor. The poet suggests that despite all its beauty, there is a limit to human art, innovativeness, and artificial creativity which can never match the ability of nature. Human art and imagination are beautiful but ultimately do not have the power to the creation of nature and reality represented by the wilderness. The poet is demonstrating the acceptance of the limits of imagination in reality.
Another interpretation could be the harmful effect of modernism and industrialization on the earth, atmosphere, and overall environment. The poet suggests that being artificial, aided with human cleverness, the artificial is dominant enough to subjugate nature but in the end, it leads to barrenness, synonymous with death. However, unlike the environmentalists, who often act holier than thou, the poet doesn’t engage in criticizing humankind, rather, he uses ‘I’ at the beginning and accepts the blame for the imagined barrenness.
Another interpretation could be the limits of any revolutionary idea. The United States rose as a brilliant idea of human liberty and progress that inspired the whole of the world. But gradually, the US started losing its shine while the world continued to grow and become better.
There can be politico-philosophical interpretations too. Some feminist critics suggest that the jar represents the patriarchial male ego dominating mother nature, a female environment, and that causes mayhem and destruction. The same jar can be said to represent industrial imperialism, destroying the environment and manipulating the wilderness. As one can see, such a short and succinct poem by Wallace Stevens can perfectly be interpreted in so many ways aligning with different philosophical connotations.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected to the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Mr. Sampath was the first novel by R. K. Narayan that he published in independent India in 1949. It was soon adapted into a Hindi film in the year 1952 with the same title. The novel is set in 1938 under the British Raj, and like many other novels of Narayan, it is also set in the fictional town of Malgudi. It is a comic novel of manners with shades of realism that talks about the hopes of common men, their struggles, desires, and eccentricities. The story is about a businessman who adapts to the collapse of his weekly newspaper by shifting to screenplays, only to have the glamour of it all go to his head.
The subtitle of the novel is The Printer of Malgudi. The novel doesn’t revolve around the protagonist as the other characters also attain somewhat equal weightage within the story.
Characters of Mr. Sampath:
Srinivas is the protagonist of the novel who belongs to a middle-class family living in Talapur. He is an idealistic person with a certain ethical code. He is already married with a teenage son named Ramu. Srinivas decides to begin a political journal titled The Banner in a nearby town Malgudi. Sampth is a conman of Malgudi. He is a very lively and optimistic person with very high ambitions but he lacks ethical stability. He enjoys his life as it comes and believes that living is not a punishment. He is also married but doesn’t care much about his family. Ravi is a young man living in Malgudi who works at a bank but doesn’t like his work. he is an artist. Shanti is a young beautiful movie actress working in the film industry. Mr. Somu, Mr. Sohan Lal, and De Mello are investors from whom Sampath swindles money to begin his film industry venture “Sunrise Pictures.” The landlord Sanyasi who owns the hovel where Srinivas lives in Malgudi is also a noticeable character. He is a miser widower who has turned his big house into several shady hovels or huts that he rents to people seeking shelter at an exorbitant rate.
Summary of Mr. Sampath— The Printer of Malgudi
Srinivas is a middle-aged man belonging to a middle-class family. His father is a reputed lawyer in Talapur while his brother is also a successful lawyer. However, Srinivas has no interest in the legal profession as he feels it involves too many pretensions and lies. He is married and is a father of a teen boy named Ramu. His brother encourages him to find some other occupation if he is not interested in law and thus, Srinivas decides to leave his ancestral home at Talapur and go to the nearby bigger town of Malgudi to begin his weekly news journal that he wishes to name The Banner. He leaves his family in Talapur so that he may invest all of his time in his new venture.
At Malgudi, he manages to set up an office where he could write and edit his newspaper but struggles to find a reliable printer. Meanwhile, he starts living at a small hovel owned by Sanyasi who is a miserly widowed old man. Sanyasi is a very eccentric person who has converted his big house into several small hovels that he offers for rent. He lives in a small hovel in the same building. He is a miser and doesn’t wish to spend a single penny for the upkeep of the hovels that are no better than huts or shanties. The whole building has a single tap-water connection that he uses most of the time. This is a big problem for the tenants who request him to get a tap water connection in each hovel. Sanyasi doesn’t heed them because extra water connection will require extra investment.
Srinivas is an idealist who wishes to follow his heart. Yet, he finds himself trapped in the web of familial responsibilities and regrets the fact that “Man has no significance except as a wage-earner, as an economic unit, as a receptacle of responsibilities.” To fulfill these responsibilities, he must find a printer that may help him establish his weekly news journal.
One day while taking lunch at Bombay Anand Bhavan restaurant, he meets a person named Mr. Sampath who claims that he has a printing machine and workers. Mr. Sampath is a lively person full of optimism and confidence. Srinivas gets impressed by him as he feels that Mr. Sampath can easily bring everyone in his favor. Mr. Sampath is also a married man who believes that life is not a punishment and enjoys every moment of it. Srinivas soon becomes his friend and begins writing for his newsletter. Mr. Sampath manages to print 500 copies of The Banner within a night and Srinivas’s new venture gets a beginning. Srinivas offers him some amount to continue the printing work and they become partners.
Ravi is a neighbor of Shrinivas who works at a bank but is more interested in painting. He often remains puzzled and aloof. One day, he confesses to Shrinivas that he is puzzled because of a beautiful girl that he saw once in a temple. Ravi is deeply in love with that girl though he knows nothing about her. He draws a beautiful sketch of that girl and shows it to Shrinivas. Shrinivas realizes that Ravi is a great artist who is forced to waste his time in a bank. Unfortunately, Ravi if fired from the bank on the same day. Shrinivas promises to find a suitable job for him.
Meanwhile, after the publication of three editions, the publication of the fourth edition of The Banner gets delayed. Shrinivas gets pensive and asks Mr. Sampath about the reason. Mr. Sampath informs us that printing got delayed because of a strike by the workers. Shrinivas finds something fishy and decides to check the printing chamber and finds out that there is no worker and Mr. Sampath himself used to do the whole work alone. But now Mr. Sampath is not feeling the same zeal and interest in that job. Anyhow, Mr. Sampath promises to begin working again.
Shrinivas further gets into trouble when he sees his wife and son Ramy at his office. His wife complains that he never answered her letters and announces that she and Ramu will live with him in Malgudi. Shrinivas is worried that his wife is habitual of living in a big house with all sorts of amenities, how will she adjust in the small shanti he is currently living in. Anyhow, he manages to get another nearby hovel for rent in the same building. However, his elder brother asks him about the performance of The Banner to which he fails to answer because Mr. Sampath hasn’t begun the printing yet. Somehow he convinces his brother that The Banner will be in circulation pretty soon.
When he meets Mr. Sampath for enquiring, he finds that Mr. Sampath has totally dropped the idea of continuing the journal and rather has established a film production company by the name “Sunrise Pictures.” Mr. Sampath informs him that he has already got a few investors for his new venture which include Mr. Somu, Mr. Sohan Lal, and De Mello.
Mr. Sampath convinces Srinivas that film production is a better and more lucrative business and engages him as the scriptwriter for their first production which is based on the Hindu legend involving the incineration of Lord Kama by lord Shiva. Shrinivas agrees and prepares the script but asks Mr. Sampath to give a job to Ravi as the art designer for the project. Mr. Sampath agrees and decides to play the role of Lord Shiva himself while he engages Shanti, a successful and beautiful actress for the role of Goddess Parvati. When Shrinivas sees Shanti in the make-up of Goddess Parvati, he finds that she appears exactly like the sketch drawn by Ravi.
Soon Shrinivas finds that Mr. Sampath is swindling the money of the investors while he is also having an affair with the lead actress despite being already married. When Shrinivas questions Mr. Sampath about it, he says that he finds nothing wrong in having two wives and he can manage both his wives well. However, Mr. Sampath says that Shrinivas should ensure that Ravi remains away from Shanti because Mr. Sampath feels that Ravi obsessively stares at Shanti and he may snatch her from Mr. Sampath. Shrinivas realizes that Ravi considers Shanti the same girl whom he saw in the temple. He tries to reason with Ravi but fails to convince him otherwise.
Meanwhile, Sanyasi is interested in convincing Ravi to marry his niece who is still a teenage girl. He approaches Shrinivas and tells him that his niece is his only responsibility and that if Ravi marries her, he will be able to die peacefully. Shrinivas again tries to convince Ravi but fails to make any progress.
One day during a shooting when Shanti and Mr. Sampath were acting on the stage, Ravi fails to control his emotions and confronts Shanti and tries to convince her to break up her affair with Mr. Sampath, who is an aged married person and elope with him. Shanti gets frightened by Ravi’s straightforwardness and shouts at him. Ravi insists she runs away with him and as Mr. Sampath tries to intervene, he throws him down the stage and injures Shanti too. This creates pandamonium while the stage goes dark because of an electric blackout.
After that incident, Mr. Sampath bundles up his film production and runs away with Shanti while stealing all the money from the investors he arranged. Ravi loses his mental balance and falls ill while Shrinivas finds himself responsible for him. Shrinivas decides to return to his first venture of printing a news journal and asks for some monetary help from his elder brother. Soon he finds another printer who is not as artistic as Mr. Sampath but he is much more professional and reliable. Shrinivas works hard with the new printer and The Banner gains good and regular circulation in the market. Meanwhile. Mr. Sampath elopes with Shanti and they enjoy a short honeymoon during which he spends all the money that he swindled. Shanti tries to manage with him for a few days but then leaves him and goes back to Bombay to revamp her career. Mr. Sampath too decides to return to Malgudi. When he reaches Malgudi, he comes to know that The Banner is working successfully. He visits Shrinivas’s home and tries to convince him to let him work for The Banner again but Shrinivas rejects him and says that he does not want to have any occupational dealings with Mr. Sampath ever again though they will remain good friends.
Meanwhile, Sanyasi, the landlord dies in an accident at the playground. His relatives start fighting over the ownership of the hovels and shanties. Somehow, they come to an agreement and then they decide to renovate all the hovels to make them better for living and arrange a private tap water connection for each of the hovels. Ravi’s condition also starts improving. The novel ends on a happy note as Shrinivas succeeds in establishing his weekly journal and the tenants of the hovels get proper water connection.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Canto 5 of The Rape of The Lock begins as Belinda ends her highly emotional lament for the loss of her lock. Everyone present at the Hampton court could feel her loss and pain. Despite the Baron’s attack on her reputation, she wins everybody’s sympathy. Thus, Clarissa rises to offer a moralizing retort suggesting that Belinda and society shouldn’t care much for external beauty that is sure to diminish with time. Instead, one should value good behavior, good humor, virtues, and merit more. Clarissa tries to calm Belinda and Thalestris down by offering a moral lecture that appears more like a hypocritical speech considering she aided the Baron in mutilating Belinda’s lock which was neither good humor nor an act of merit or virtue. She fails to calm Belinda and Thalesris who demand the Baron must return the Lock. The Baron being adamant refuses and declares his intention to encase the hair in a ring and wear it forever. This enrages Belinda and Thalestrist and they declare a battle against the Baron and his folks. Pope describes a party scuffle in an epic war manner. The Baron’s side is obviously more powerful and aided by god’s favor. Yet, Belinda manages to subdue the Baron and demands the lock back. But the Baron fails to do so because, during the haphazardous battle, the Lock goes missing for good. The Baron, Thalestris, Belinda, and others try to locate it everywhere possible but fail to find it.
Summary of The Rape of The Lock Canto 5:
Lines 1-34
As Belinda finishes her tearful emotional lament at the loss of her lock, everyone present at the party feels for her except the Baron. He insists that the lock is now the cherished trophy that he will entrap in a ring with diamonds and wear it until he breathes. This further enrages Belinda and Thalestris. ‘Fate and Jove’ prevents the Baron from listening to reason. Pope offers an allusionsuggesting that gods interfere with humans to bring upon such crisis and compares the Baron with Aeneas, the Trojan Hero from Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. Jove is the Roman god Jupiter who forces Aeneas to leave Carthage despite his lover Dido doing everything possible to stop him and be with him. Dido’s sister Anna too tries to stop Aeneas but he doesn’t stop. Ultimately, Dido commits suicide. While the case of Aeneas, Dido, and Anna involved very high stakes, it is a mock element. Pope’s situation of a war over the lock appears to be ridiculous. Dido was tricked to fall in love with Aeneas by Cupid, and here Umbriel is doing the stuff. One can observe the pervasive supernatural influence over mortals in the poem right from the beginning. Belinda is compared to Dido while Thalestris appears to be Anna.
Clarrisa, whose name literally means ‘clarity’ observes the situation. She aided the Baron in mutilating the lock and humiliating Belinda to make her lose her honor. Now when she listens to the reproaches of Thalestris and observes that everyone is sympathetic towards Belinda, she plays the moral card. She notes that men often call women angels and worship them as such without assessing their moral character. She observes that beauty is ephemeral: “Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to gray; / Since Painted, or not painted all shall fade.” Clarissa argues that “frail beauty must decay” and thus, women should stress more on other qualities like virtues, merit, and good sense in particular. She says that if vain activities, such as dancing all night and dressing oneself all day, warded off smallpox or stopped one from aging, it would make sense to ignore duty and never to learn anything, and it would actively be moral to take pleasure in beautifying oneself. She addresses Belinda and says that when her tantrums (“airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding”) will fail to restore her beauty so she must value ‘good humor’ more because that will make her win again. Pope uses Anaphora again (lines 11, 12, 13, & 14 begin with ‘Why’ during Clarissa’s speech.)
Lines 35-70
Nobody offers any thoughts to Clarissa’s reasonable speech as they could sense the hypocrisy behind all that. Belinda ignores her while Thalestris calls her ‘prude’ who is jealous as Belinda is sexually superior. Belinda calls for “To arms, to arms!” and declares a courtly war against the Baron and his folks. The narrator is observing all this as he calls Thalestris a Virago, a woman who fights like a man. All friends of Belinda start attacking the Baron and his friends. The narrator describes the battle in a mock-epic manner and compares the courtly fight of Belinda and Thalestris against the Baron and Clarissa with a battle between “Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes” and Jove and Neptune. Pallas is Athena or Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom, war, strategy, and defense. Mars is the god of war, Latona is the mother of Apollo and Diana, while Hermes is mercury, the god of thieves and tricksters, and the guide to the underworld. Jove is Jupiter, the king of all gods, lord of the sky while Neptune is Poseidon, the god of sea and earthquakes, tsunamis.
It’s an all-round riot at the Hampton court where Belinda’s gang and the Baron’s flock jump at each other with fans, canes, and snuffboxes, or simply wound each other with mean glances and sarcasm. Umbriel observes all this gleefully as he sees the success of Queen of the Spleen.
The fiercest warrior is Thalestris who “scatters death from both her eyes.” Sir Dapperwit and Sir Fopling perish as she throws her frowning glances over them. Dapper and Fop indicate male vanity. Pope makes it all satirically hilarious because, despite their supposed intellectual and moral authority over women, the men in this poem appear especially foolish. Other names used for males are “Beau” and “Witling.”
Pope uses ‘frown’ as a metaphor for a deathly blow and thus equates the struggle at Hampton court with that of godly wars of classic literature. While it appears juxtaposition, the idea is that the Holmer’s classical gods and their interference with human matters were equally silly and ridiculous as what is going on on the campus of Hampton court.
And then, Pope introduces eroticism within the boundaries of the battlefield and strengthens his sexual allegory. The battlefield is filled with erotic sounds of “Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; Heroes’ and heroines’ shouts confusedly rise/ bass and treble voices strike the skies.”The petticoats made of whalebones were torn down. Pope uses ‘death’ and “perish” as a metaphor for orgasm. Sir Plume jumps on Clarissa and brings her down, winning over her but soon, another girl named Chloe from the Baron’s gang frowns at Sir Plume and he “dies.” As Chloe smiles to cherish her win, Sir Plume revives again and admires her beauty, while still atop Clarissa.
Lines 71-102
Jove, who openly favored the Baron, observes that Belinda’s gang is gaining an upper hand and thus, decides to intervene. Soon ‘Men’s wits’ start overpowering ‘Lady’s hair.’ As the whalebones of petticoats have already been cracked, one can guess what hair is being overpowered. But Belinda is in no mood to accept defeat. As she observes the “Wits mount up, the Hairs subside,” she decides it’s no time for her to ‘die’ and jumps on the Baron with excessive lightning in her eyes. She easily overpowers the Baron and “sits” over him. However, the Baron is unafraid because he “sought no more than on his foe to die.” His goal right from the start has been sexual gratification for which he ‘raped’ the lock. Pope’s parody smoothly reverses the role and presents females as aggressors. Thalestris fights as a Virago and easily overcomes many men while Belinda abandons all pretexts of lady-like grace. She pinches the Baron’s nose and throws some snuff powder on him before releasing his nose. As he breathes the snuff power in, he is forced to sneeze loudly. He promised that he won’t return the lock until he breathes, so Belinda makes sure that his breath is broken for a while.
After that, she takes her bodkin out but this is no ordinary hairpin. Once the metal was in the form of three seal rings of Belinda’s great-great-grandfather. After his death, it was melted and turned into a buckle for his widow who passed it to her grandmother as a child in the form of a whistle, and then was turned into a bodkin for her mother, and then finally passed down to Belinda herself. It is another mock-epic element as Pope creates the history of an ordinary hairpin and imbues it with the same significance as Agamemnon’s scepter or Achilles’ shield in The Iliad.
Belinda then threatens the Baron with the Bodkin who succumbs and accepts defeat. He says that one day Belinda will also be brought down like him (sexual allegory again) but wishes to be allowed to live. He says that he doesn’t fear death (metaphor) but doesn’t wish to be separated from Belinda as she is sitting on him in unison. He wishes to remain alive in this position while being burnt and tortured by the flames of Cupid.
Lines 103-150
Mounted over the Baron, Belinda feels no emotions, no remorse, the only thing on her mind is her lock and she demands and shouts “Restore the Lock!” Her fierceness and intensity are no less than Othello searching for the handkerchief of his wife Desdemona to ascertain her infidelity before killing her. Pope brings another allusion to Shakespeare’s famous tragedy of Othello, the Moor, and presents a juxtaposition between an incredibly tense and dramatic situation and a silly situation. Pope equates Belinda's lock of hair with the handkerchief which causes Othello's jealousy and his eventual murder of Desdemona. Satire cuts both ways, so Pope is mocking Othello’s lack of trust too.
Now when the Baron has been forced to break his breath and sneeze by Belinda, he is not bound by any promise and thus, he accepts defeat and decides to return the lock to Belinda. But then he realizes that during the haphazard struggle, he has lost the lock. Everybody stops fighting and starts searching for the lock which is nowhere to be found. The narrator then suggests that the lock was perhaps too “blest” for any mortal to possess. Some of her friends soothe Belinda by saying that the lock has been passed to the “lunar sphere” where things lost on earth can supposedly be found. The narrator informs that the moon’s realm is the place where everything is lost, from “broken vows” to “lovers’ hearts” to “Cages for gnats” to “the courtier’s promises” to “sick man’s prayers” to “dried butterflies” can be found.
However, the narrator doesn’t agree with these people as he claims that only his Muse, the goddess of art and poetry is witness to the fact that Belinda’s lost lock rose to the heights of the sky just like Romulus’ ascent to the heavens was seen only by Proculus."Trust the Muse—she saw it upward rise" and the "quick Poetic Eyes" of the narrator were able to see it too. Pope makes another allusion to the greatness of Belinda’s lock and equates it to Romulus, the founder of Rome, whom Proculus the second saw in his vision, ascending to heaven after his death. The narrator doesn’t stop at that and claims that the lock attained greater heights aided by the Sylphs who saw it rise like a shooting star and shine more brightly than Berenice’s locks. This is the ultimate allusion that Pope makes in honor of Arabella Fermor, the historical inspiration for Belinda. The allusion is to the Ancient Egyptian mythical queen Berenice who sacrificed her marvelous long hair to save her husband's life. The gods honored her sacrifice and placed the locks into the sky as a constellation that we now know as the constellation Coma Berenices.
The narrator then affirms his statement and says that now the beau monde (or the fashionable high society people) who spend their time at prosperous and fashionable places of London like the Mall and the Rosamunda’s Lake at St. James’s Park can see the shining lock in the sky. The narrator further weighs in and says that “Partridge” will be able to spot Belinda’s lock through “Galileo’s eyes”. John Partridge was an English astrologer infamous for hoax prediction and quackery. Pope satirizes him here while “Galileo’s eyes” are an allusion to the Galilean telescope.
The narrator then addresses Belinda directly and tells her not to be sad as now her lock will outlive her and will remain young, lovely, and shining beautiful forever. Her lock will inspire the Muse to write Belinda’s name among the stars like Berenice’s was written. Pope ends the poem here with all praises to beautiful Belinda, despite all her follies.
While Clarrisa’s speech mentioned that beauty is ephemeral, “Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to gray; / Since Painted, or not painted all shall fade,” the narrator and the poet himself offer a counterpoint. The narrator agrees that beauty is transient but suggests that beauty is yet valuable and it may achieve a degree of immorality with the aid of the Muse, the goddess of art and poetry. Because a poet may raise things above the trivial world and into the world of eternal literary fame the Pope does with the lock of Belinda. Thus, Pope ends The Rape of The Lock in the manner of a Horatian satire that gently and humorously points out the evils of high-class society but keeps a sympathetic attitude towards the characters despite their follies.
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!
Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Baron ‘half’ succeeds in his mission to rob the locks of Belinda and keep them as a trophy of his victory over the nymph in his collection of trophies. Canto 4 discusses the aftermath of this robbery. One may find it ridiculous enough, but despite being a satire, The Rape of The Lock offers a serious outlook on the struggles of genders that continues even now.
The Baron’s sexual jealousy and lust for Belinda were the reason behind his motive to steal the lock of hair. The Baron is no different than an unrequited lover of the 21st century, obsessed and deeply infatuated by a girl who doesn’t permit him to breach her reputation. What he does in return is to throw a bottle of acid on her, ruining her beauty, her charm and boasting his victory that if you can’t be mine, you cannot be of anybody else’s. As per ASTI, on average, 1500 cases of acid attack are reported every year and 80% of them are against women. Violence against women and girls is the most widespread form of systematic abuse worldwide and what Belinda faced was violence. Pope’s 794 lines long mock-epic was published in 1714 as a social satire but it would be hard to say that situations have improved even a bit.
Summary of The Rape of The Lock Canto 4 :
Lines 1-16
Pope begins Canto 4 with the description of Belinda’s sorrow over her fall of reputation and loss of a lock of hair. She is languishing in “rage, resentment, and despair.” Pope makes excellent use of Anaphora (Lines 3-8 begin with ‘Not’) while mentioning that Belinda’s “anxious cares” and “secret passions” after the loss of her lock exceeds the sorrow of imprisoned kings to unhappy women who outlive their looks, from lovers losing their beloveds to old women who want to be kissed, from tyrants dying to a woman named Cynthia whose scarf won't go straight. The Juxtaposition and comparison between Belinda’s melodramatic despair and the despair of people enduring much greater suffering than a bad haircut once again emphasize the ridiculousness of the situation. Pope accentuates the excess and impropriety of Belinda’s grief after the theft of her hair, which is a minor setback. On the other hand, he clarifies the depth of the deed done by the Baron by mentioning that the Sylphs are not protecting or consoling Belinda. She is no more a coquette, no more a virgin to be protected and revered by the Sylphs. In a sense, the Baron has metaphorically sexually violated her, making her no longer a virgin, and thus the term ‘rape’ in the title. The narrator addresses Belinda as a “sad Virgin” with “ravished hair.” Symbolism has been used here to address the depth of the Baron’s act.
As Ariel and his minion Sylphs have left Belinda to her fate, Gnomes, the other spirits much lower in the hierarchy than the Sylphs, sense their chance and Umbriel, a ‘dusky’ gnome decides to play his mischief. He immediately heads to the “Cave of Spleen.” In those times, the spleen was considered responsible for all kinds of physical diseases and problems, especially depression, moodiness, and sadness. The Cave of Spleen is somewhere “down the Central Earth.” it is a mock-epic element. Most of the classical epics including Virgil’s Aeneid and Holmer’s Odyssey mention a descent into the underworld. Pope makes use of it.
Lines 17-54
These lines are full of personification. As Umbriel descends to the subterranean Cave of Spleen, he sees the wind East languishing on a bed in a dark closed grotto where no fresh air and no glittering sunray can ever reach. East is suffering pain at her side and migraine. He enters deeper and sees two handmaids, waiting for the throne. These are Ill-Nature, and Affection, the personification of the conditions that are their names. Ill-Nature appears like an ‘ancient maid.’ She is a withered old woman in a dress of black and white, like an old nun with no sense of humor or spiritedness for life. Her heart is full of spite for others. Affectation is young and appears beautiful, but sick. She speaks with a lisp and deliberately hangs her head to the side. She is richly dressed, languishing on expensive bedding. She represents the worst excesses of put-on femininity, a belle gone too far. She pretends to be a vulnerable damsel, though she isn’t. She enjoys all comforts of wealth yet, pretends to be sickly.
Umbriel continues further down through the Cave and encounters a strange vapor through which, strange shapes arise out of nothing and then vanish. In these vapors, Umbriel sees women who are “expiring,” “glaring fiends,” “snakes,” “Pale spectres,” “gaping tombs,” “lakes of liquid gold” and “angels in machines.” The narrator says that the magical vapors are like the “Elysian Scene” and contrast compares this grotesque, horrible place with Elysian Fields, the Ancient Greek version of Heaven. Umbriel sees talking teapots and small clay jars (Pipkin). There Umbriel sees ‘Homer’s Tripod’, pregnant men. And “maids turned bottles,” women who have been transformed into bottles and call out for corks. There are intense sexual innuendos in these lines. The cave includes women with distinctly unladylike sexual appetites. The term ‘expiring’ can be used to denote both, death and orgasm. The women metamorphosized into bottles craving phallic-shaped corks. And there are pregnant men. All the masculine and feminine rules of the world have been turned upside down in the underworld. There are snakes, and angels forced into labor machines. Another allusion to Satan’s underworld from Paradise Lost by Milton. Is the Queen of Spleen, the Sin, daughter, and lover of the fallen angel? Homer’s Illiad mentions magical walking three-legged tables that are also present here.
Lines 55-88
Even the mischievous Gnome couldn’t bear all this madness of the underworld but he had aid and hence Umbriel passes along safely, holding a piece of “spleenwort” in his hand. Then he reaches the depth of the Underworld where the Queen of Spleen resides in all her glory. Umbriel is humbled, he hails her as the goddess of all women between the ages of 15 and 50, making them either hysterical and ill or making them frantically attempt to compose poetry and plays. Remember Aphra Behn who wrote Oroonoko and The Rover? Her pen name was Astrea.
Then Umbriel complains to The Queen of Spleen about Belinda, the beautiful woman who hasn’t yet succumbed to the Queen’s power. She enjoys herself too much and is so proud. And he complains that there are thousands more like her. He then cajoles the Queen and says how he has always served her with utmost devotion and mentions how he ruins women’s complexions, brings about cuckoldry, and rumps up petticoats and bedding to make it seem like illicit sexual encounters have taken place where they haven’t, messes up a prude’s headdress, and even kills a beloved lapdog. Umbriel says that he spoils the grace of the proud girls “Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face.”
Umbriel addresses the queen as the ruler of “the sex to fifty from fifteen.” He means the Queen rules all girls and women between ages 15-55, which is the general age of menstruation periods. This suggests that the spleen is closely related to sexual dysfunction and erratic behavior. Thus, though society frowns upon ugly women and those who are adulterous, the real culprit is Umbriel and the Queen of Spleen. Umbriel then requests the Queen of Spleen to affect Belinda with “chagrin.”
Initially, it appears as if the Queen is disinterested but then she grants him his wish and binds together a bag of gifts for him which appears no different than the bag which once Ulysses held to contain the winds. It is an allusion to Homer’s Odyssey in which Ulysses, the protagonist was given a bag full of all winds except the west wind, as the west wind was assigned the task to blow his ship home from the Trojan War. However, as Ullyses’ ship reaches the shore, his men accidentally open up the bag and all the captured winds come out of the bag. As a result, their ship is blown far away. It takes them ten years to get home again. Umbriel’s bag contains “the force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.” The Queen also grants Umbriel a vial that holds “fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.” Entire Canto 4 appears to be an allusion to Aeneas’s trip to the Underworld in the Book 4 of Virgil’s Aeneid.
Lines 89-140
As Umbriel returns with the gifts of Queen of Spleen, he sees that Belinda is distraught, with her disheveled open hair that was so beautifully combed and threaded a little while ago before the Baron ravaged her. She is being consoled by Thalestris who laments at Belinda’s loss of lock. Thalestris’s name and her personality are other allusions to Greek mythology. In ancient Greece, there lived a Queen of the Amazons, a tough female warrior who was more than a match for Alexander the Great, her name was Thalestris. Umbriel could have no better moment than this to open his bag and let the magic of Queen of Spleen bring more discord. As he opens the bag, all the “Furies” get out. This is another allusion to Greek mythology. The Furies were always angry and vengeful creatures unleashed by the gods to punish criminals. Umbriel’s Furies fan the anger and ‘mortal ire’ of Belinda and “fierce Thalestris raise the fire.” She was quietly consoling just a while ago but suddenly, she loudly cries "Oh wretched maid!" and grasps Belinda in her arms.
She reminds Belinda of all the pains she took for that splendid lock of hair from “torturing irons” to straining her “tender head” with “fillets.” How she nourished them with “bodkin, comb, and essence.” Thalestris is worried that the Baron will make good use of the robbed lock for humiliating Belinda by displaying it for everyone to see how he breached her reputation. Thalestris says that once Belinda does lose her honor, even she herself won't want to be Belinda's friend, as everyone will talk about her too.
Then Thalestris brings upon the symbolism that suggests that the lost lock wasn’t just simple hair. She is horrified that now when the Baron has Belinda’s lock, he will place it in the center of a ring and display it on his hand for the rest of time. Could it be the marriage ring? Firstly, Belinda was metaphorically sexually ravaged and now, the Baron may force marriage on her for further humiliation and marital sexual exploitation and she wouldn’t be able to say no to such a situation once she loses her reputation. Thalestris makes Belinda imagine all this horror as “the fops envy” (at the Baron’s victory trophy), and “the ladies stare” (at Belinda’s fate)!
Thus, Thalestris is adamant that they must do everything possible to bring back the hair of the lock that the Baron cut down and kept as a trophy of his victory over Belinda. All this further burns Belinda in anger and shame. Thalestris says that the rumormongering has already begun and compares Belinda with a “degraded toast.” Thalestris then wonders what she can do to protect her friend’s honor. She must do something quick enough before the “rapacious” Baron completely disgraces Belinda and force her to marry heat his terms. She decides to get back the lost lock of hair before the Baron decides to set it in the center of a ring and adorn it in his hand to display the glory of Belinda’s lock of hair “heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays,” to the world. Thus, Thalestris asks help from her beau, her suitor Lord Plume, who is a fop with an expensive snuff box and fashionable cane. Lord Plume goes to face the Baron and demandsssss the lock of Belinda back. The Baron says that though Lord Plume speaks so nicely, it's all in vain because he will never return the lock of hair he gained while cherishing the smell of hair that Belinda nourished with essence. He then declares, “This hand, which won it, shall forever wear." Thus, Thalestris’s fears prove to be true.
Lines 141-176
Umbriel was observing the whole event while marveling at the effect of the furies on Thalestris and Belinda’s heads. Yet, he was net, satisfied, and didn’t wish to go slack. He diligently opens up the vial from which Sorrow starts to flow and that vial directly affects Belinda who appears disillusioned, languishing, crying with tears flowing out of her eyes. She cries about her fate and says that she wishes she hadn’t visited the court and stayed at home instead. She now remembers the whole day was full of bad omens, offering warnings to her about what might happen. She remembers how she dropped her “patch box” three times and how she observed, “The tottering china shook without a wind.” She further says that even her lapdog Shock was behaving unusually as if the dog had some inkling of the impending attack on her. Then she mentions the Sylph that came in her dream and warned her. She laments that she ignored the warnings of the Sylph, she couldn’t understand him until it was too late. She is sad about the loss of her hair, but she is more disgusted by the feel of the hand of the Baron on her. She wishes to tear off the remaining lock, feeling that it “tempts once more” the Baron’s “sacrilegious hands.”
Yet, her real worry is that it is open for all to see that now she has a lonely lock on her head. She confronts the Baron and asks why did you take my lock whose loss is so obvious. She says that if the Baron was so obsessed with her hair, he could have taken “Hairs less in sight, or any Hairs but these.” She meant her pubic hair. She says that it might have been much crueler but wouldn’t have caused public humiliation to her. It further suggests the pretense of Belinda who admits that she would rather compromise her virtue than suffer damage to her looks. Thus, Pope shows the misplaced significance and value that society places on external appearances.
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.
Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The first two parts of The Rape of The Lock were published in May 1712 and then, two years later, Alexander Pope republished The Rape of The Lock as a five-canto version with 794 lines in total. A Canto is defined as a major division of an epic. Pope wrote The Rape of The Lock as a mock epic and hence, his long narrative poem was written in Heroic couplets. Canto three contains 178 lines most of which are written in iambic pentameter. The irony, juxtaposition, zeugma, simile, allusions to Greek mythology, and to Milton’s Paradise Lost, and personification, are the major literary devices used in this metaphorical satire by Alexander Pope.
Summary of The Rape of The Lock Canto 3 :
Lines 1-24
The third Canto begins as Belinda’s boat arrives at Hampton Court. Pope describes Hampton Court as the prime location where Queen Anne “Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.” It is a majestic place of political importance where “Britain’s statesmen” deal with matters at home and abroad. The first 8 lines are suffused with zeugma, offering two parallel worlds existing side by side. It is the place where the Queen and her couriers often discuss the most serious issues involving the world’s politics, businesses, and wars. It is the same place where Belinda visits to attend the party, which is the hunting ground for her to enslave men. At Hampton Court, Queen Anne sometimes takes counsel and makes decisions “foredooming" the fall of "Foreign Tyrants," some other times, she enjoys teas and parties. There’s hardly any difference between the two for the politicians of England. The British statesman, Pope says considers both equally important. Pope is much more respectful towards Queen Anne while he ridicules the statesmen who appear to be more indulgent in nymphs of home, like Belinda. The nobles and gentry who hang around the Queen's court are partying, ogling, flirting, eating, and generally making intrigue. Pope describes the court as the epicenter of rumourmongering and gossiping and says, at “every word a reputation dies.”
Belinda is part of this gentry. While all this is going on in the Hampton court, the governmental functions of the court continue, somewhat hurriedly, as they are about to halt for lunch. The “hungry judges” quickly sign sentences and people condemned to death are hanged at the gallows so their jurors can eat sooner. This is a place of corruption. ‘Hungry’ is a metaphor demonstrating that this is a place in which personal greed is placed above justice or empathy. The judges, juries, merchants, and the idle rich get ready for dining, ogling, and flirting, within time as they finish their work at their "Toilette" or dressing table. Their jobs and duties matter little against the charms of the Nymphs looking to hunt them at the party.
Lines 25-100
Lines 25 to 100 describe the card game "Ombre," which was a very popular card game of Pope's day, where players win by taking tricks. Pope uses personification to enliven the cards as they represent the armies fighting each other in mock-epic combat with the opposing players as the general-in-chief, and that is the extended metaphor presented in these 75 lines. The face cards seem like living Kings, Queens, and Jacks commanding an army of numbered cards.
Classical epical poetries always depict spectacular battles between clashing civilizations involving both mortals and gods. The battle at Hampton court involves cards, humans, and Sylphs.
As the Velvet Plain is prepared for the battle of cards, Belinda feels confident and believes she is invincible “And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.” Aerial and his minion Syphs take their place on each of the important cards to help Belinda win all games. These Sylphs used to be coquettes like Belinda who loved Ombre when they were alive.
Belinda’s cards “Draw forth to combat,” and she declares that spades will be trumps. She continues to win initial games. Her first conquerer is “Spadillo.” He “Led off two captive trumps and swept the board.” Her second card is Manilo which again makes a big win. But her third card, ‘Basto’, struggles, yet wins. She then sends the King of Spades to the battleground and makes a huge win.
The Baron, with the blessings of Love, is the strong opponent. Despite the anxious help of Sylphs, Belinda faces struggles against the opponent general. The Baron’s Queen of Spades beats her King of Clubs, and then he plays his high diamond cards, which proves to be a brilliant move that “pierced battalions dis-united fall.” Belinda loses her Queen of Hearts to his Knave of Spades, and she fears she is about to lose. But when he plays his Ace, Belinda surprises her and plays the King of Hearts, and wins again. As the invincible warrior, Belinda roars and celebrates her success.
Lines 101-124
The narrator then laments that these thoughtless mortals know so little of the future. Belinda is careless and unaware of the impending disaster that will come on this “victorious day” and Belinda’s “honors” will be “snatched away.”
A girl’s virginity and chastity are often compared with her reputation or honor. Pope continues the sexual innuendos and makes it sound as if Belinda will lose her virginity forcibly, though it is not clear yet what lies in her fate.
The ‘Ombre’ ends with a thumping win of Belinda and then the party guests gather around the coffee and tea tables. Before the ‘Age of Exploration’ the main drinks of Britain were water, wine, and beer. But the conquests in America, China, and India made the Europeans aware of the tastes of coffee and tea. These were exotic and very precious items back then. Pope makes use of Periphrasis to indirectly refer to these exotic items meant for the highly rich party at Hampton court. "Berries crackle" are roasting coffee beans, and the "grateful liquors" are coffee and tea. Pope introduces irony as the party members enjoy some rare, exotic things, they feel they control all the “altars of Japan” and “China’s earth,” suggesting the expansion of colonies under the British Empire. Pope continues to use zeugma or parallel construction while mentioning the really important things along with the ridiculousness of the party at Hampton court. “Coffee, (which makes the Politician wise,/ And see thro' all things with his half shut Eyes)” suggests the British trade that was blooming. The same Coffee reminds the Baron of his real intentions. He is here to add another trophy to his huge collection. All he could see now is the radiant glittering locks of Belinda. He starts thinking of a plan to act and achieve his most precious desire. The narrator fears that the Baron may meet the fate of Scyla, the daughter of Nisus. It is an allusion to the VIII Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis which tells the story of King Nisus who had purple hair that made him invincible. His daughter Scyla fell in love with a rival king. She couldn’t marry her lover until her father is defeated in the war. So Scylla decided to cut her father’s purple hair so that her lover may defeat him. This treachery against her own father disgusted her lover and he decided to leave her. The gods then punished her by turning her into a seagull.
Lines 125-146
Pope introduces Clarissa in line 127. She is a friend of Belinda and an accomplice of the Baron. She pulls out a pair of scissors and offers them to the Baron. Pope juxtaposes the scissor with the sword of a knight and offers a simile for Clarissa likening her to ‘Ladies in romance’ who prepare the knight with his weapon before he goes to the battleground. The contrast is that a knight of King Arthur would remain ready to give up his life to defend a woman, but the Baron seeks to steal from and humiliate a woman.
The Baron moves to the back of Belinda, aiming at one of her locks that he desires. However, he couldn’t escape the careful eyes of the Sylphs protecting Belinda. They try to warn and save Belinda by fiddling with her hair and twisting her earring three times, but each time, when Belinda turned and looked back, the Baron expertly got away from her eyes to come back and aim at her lock again. Sylphs couldn’t tell a word to Belinda, as their voices were no more than singing zephyrs.
Clarissa’s assistance to the Baron in his nefarious task shows the rivalry among the women that Pope explores in the poem’s sexual allegory. Clarissa willingly participates in the ‘metaphoric’ rape of Belinda despite being her friend. Pope satirizes the women folk by mentioning that rather than a sisterhood united against male sexual advances, women seek to undermine each other in the competition to find a suitable husband. The metaphoric’ rape of Belinda will ascertain her loss of reputation and honor. Her sexual fall would remove her from the marriage market, ensuring less competition for rich or titled young men such as the Baron.
Hampton Court is a place of rumormongering and gossiping where “At every word a reputation dies.” Thus, Belinda doesn’t need to compromise her virtue to lose her honor. A Blatant attack on her reputation will be enough to make her fall forever and that is what Clarissa wishes. And why these women are unkind and unsympathetic towards each other? It is a further criticism of British society with a sexual double standard in which a woman must attract a husband without compromising her virtue.
Meanwhile, Ariel is adamant to protect Belinda against all possible dangers and thus, he decides to go to her mind and warn her again. As he accesses Belinda’s inner thoughts, but—to his shock—finds “An earthly lover lurking there.” As he observes, he sighs and resigns, leaving Belinda to her fate. She is no more the invincible Nymph. Ariel observes that Belinda has already accepted defeat against that man. She either deserves or wishes to be violated, by that earthly lover, who happens to be the Baron.
Lines 147-174
While Ariel has resigned and accepted his defeat and fall of his coquette, the other Sylphs are still attentive to their posts for protecting Belinda. As the Baron attempts the fourth time, a Sylph comes forward to protect Belinda and faces the scissor. The Sylph is immediately cut into two pieces and he fails to protect the lock of Belinda that the Baron cuts down in the fourth attempt. The Sylph immediately recovers as “airy substance soon unites again”. The final attempt by the Sylph to protect Belinda’s lock is again an allusion to the Book VI of The Paradise Lost by Milton, depicting the battle of archangels against Satan. Pope contrasts the incredibly high-stakes battle and the relatively low-stakes hair snipping, satirizing the triviality of Hampton court.
Belinda’s loss is irreparable. It’s not just hair, her reputation, and her honor has been attacked, and downtrodden. She cries out in horror while the Baron shouts his victory song. Belinda’s cries could tremble the heavens. She cries so loud as women cry when their “Husbands” dies, or their “lapdogs.”
The Baron continues to exalt his victory and claims that his reputation for ‘raping the lock of Belinda will remain forever, or at least till the people will read The New Atlantis, a political satire by Delariver Manly that was published in 1709. In The New Atlantis, a parallel is drawn between the exploitation of females and the political deception of the public. Pope aptly mentions it as his mock epic as the Baron exploits Belinda, the frail.
As Belinda cries inconsolably, the narrator offers consolation by mentioning ‘Steel’ as the apostrophe. The weapons made of steel became the reason for the fall of Troy. The Baron also used a weapon made of steel. If steel could steel weapons bring down the city of Troy, how could Belinda possibly have protected her lock of hair from it? The narrator tries to console Belinda in the last lines.
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.
