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Literaturwissenschaft

Università degli studi di Trento

29, Kairoff, 2016

Zoe G. ©
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The Rape of the Lock: how and why Alexander Pope uses classical and religious references to analyze his society


INTRODUCTION:


During the Augustan era - a literary period, which started after the end of the Restoration era, approximately 1690, and ended with the death of Alexander Pope in 1744 - a multitude of witty writers, including John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson, gave birth to a new form of long verse narrative or mock epic, often satirical and always based on classical models.

Thanks to them, we can now enjoy reading Mac Flacknoe,Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, The Rape of the Lock and London, literary works with common features that are immediately recognizable and regularly studied: they satirize serious and elevated topics to expose human failings; they strive to achieve harmony and precision; they are all imitations of Roman, Greek or religious models.

This last characteristic is probably the first one every reader notices and, in my opinion, it’s the main aspect which connotes the Augustan poetry. When reading these works I couldn’t help thinking about how brave those authors had been by taking such milestones as the classical and religious literature and putting them upside down. I found it very hilarious to discover all the forms in which Dryden, Swift, Pope and Johnson deformed the classics to highlight the decadence of their society.


Some modern readers could easily argue that there is no innovation in this kind of works, that they are just intelligent patchworks of past masterpieces since they rely on forms and structures, which great poets like Horace, Virgil and Homer had already experimented and made large use of. On the contrary, I’m sure that a closer look at these works, would unveil their grandeur.

The purpose of my essay is to analyze what is, in my opinion, the most interesting of the above mentioned Augustan works, The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, in an attempt to outline its classical and religious references, to make clear why the author imported them into this poem and how they contribute to the creation of such an original literary work.


I decided to analyze The Rape of the Lock because I see it as a very original story, which became a well-known literary work, besides its odd plot. The Rape of the Lock is a mock epic, first published in 1712 and then, in its final version in 1717, and for this reason, its elaborate formal structure is that of an epic poem.

Five cantos tell the story of a mock heroin, Belinda, who loses one of her beautiful hair locks at a party, because her suitor, the Baron, decides to cut it off for his own pleasure. The subject matter of the poem is trivial: it’s not a poem about war or love, as epic poems usually are, but the tone is high and serious. Lots of high references come from works which educated people of the 18th-century society surely used to know.

As I will now illustrate, Pope decides to play with these old models to catch the attention of the readers and to let them think about the situation of their present.


PART ONE

Classical references in The Rape of the Lock


The structure of The Rape of the Lock is the first reference to epic poems. Pope divides itinto cantos, a form used by Italian authors like Dante and Ariosto in their major epics, and uses iambic couplets. The iambic couplet consists of two rhymed lines of ten alternately stressed and unstressed syllables each.
It is also called heroic couplet, because typically heroic poems, such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, were written in this measure.


In addition, the reference to the epic poem is not only in the verse form, but also in the use of invocations, exclamations, similes and, above all, in its content. The humor and the satire of The Rape of the Lock are mostly given by the comparison between classical characters or rituals, and the 18th-century frivolous society and traditions.


The first case in point is at the very beginning of the poem – a trick used by Pope to immediately show his humorous perspective – when the speaker invokes the gods and muses to get inspired by them, in order to tell the story of a Belle and a Lord:

What dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,

What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things,

I sing -- This Verse to Caryll, Muse! is due;

This, ev'n Belinda may vouchfafe to view:

Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise,

If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.

Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel

A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?

                        (Canto I, 1-8)


The invocation to the muse is a very typical feature of epic poems and it indicates that the writer is looking for inspiration from a higher source. Here are some examples of invocations to the muse in Homer’s epics:


Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus

and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achians,

(The Iliad, 1-2)


Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven

far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.

(The Odyssey, 1-2)


In The Iliad and The Odyssey, the goddess and the muse are the ones informed about the story and it’s their duty to tell the writer all about it, so that he can shape it into poetry. In The Rape of the Lock, Pope not only uses estranging adjectives like “trivial”, “slight”, “strange” that wrong-foot the reader accustomed to epic, but also puts another atypical character as source of inspiration: Caryll, a man (no divine offspring) who, according to verse 3 wanted the poem to be written.

On one hand, from a historical point of view, this makes sense, because John Caryll was a friend of Alexander Pope and he was a member of the same circle of Roman Catholics the two families of Arabella Fermor and her suitor,
Lord Petre, belonged to. The episode of the rape of the lock, in fact, had really happened and the result was a dreadful row between these two prominent families.

That’s why Caryll asked Pope to write about the lock episode: he wanted to use humor to reconcile the families. On the other hand, from a poetic point of view, it is highly unusual to read the name of a living human being in an invocation because the power to evoke was only in the hands of supernatural beings, but that’s another instrument that Pope uses to be ironical and to highlight the baseness of the topic.

In the poem, two more examples of classical references are worthy to be analyzed: the preparation of Belinda for the party and the card game.

The first one, the primping of Belinda for party, has lots of similarities to the arming of the heroes for battle:

The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,

Transform'd to Combs, the speckled and the white.

Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,

Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.

Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;

The Fair each moment rises in her Charms,

Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,

And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;

(Canto I, 135-142)


In their midst, Achilles armed for battle. /…/

First he clasped the fine greaves, with silver ankle-pieces, round his legs. Next he strapped on the breastplate, and slung the silver-studded bronze sword across his shoulders. Then he grasped the great solid shield that shone like the moon from afar. /…/ Then he took his father’s spear from its stand, the long, massive, weighty spear of ash from the summit of Pelion that Cheiron gave his beloved father for the killing of men, and that Achilles alone now of all the Greeks could wield.

(The Iliad, XIX: 338-424)

Certainly, the scene described by Homer is on a different level from the scene of Belinda, but that’s right the point Pope wants to highlight to create a humorous effect.

The second example, the card game, is a clear reference to how battles were described in epic, but with cards instead of warriors, and sylphs instead of guarding gods:

Soon as she spreads her Hand, th' Aerial Guard

Descend, and sit on each important Card,

First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore,

Then each, according to the Rank they bore;

(Canto 3, 31-34)


And Particolour'd Troops, a shining Train,

Draw forth to Combat on the Velvet Plain. 

The skillful Nymph reviews her Force with Care;

Let Spades be Trumps, she said, and Trumps they were.

In Show like Leaders of the swarthy Moors.

Spadillio first, unconquerable Lord!

(Canto 3, 43-49)

The battle has been juxtaposed with a humble Ombre game, played by Belinda and the Baron, but even in this nonviolent context, there are “troops” who “combat”, “matadore[s]” who move to war and “unconquerable” leaders, like “Spadillio”. The majority of the vocabulary used by Pope in this 3rd canto belongs to the semantic field of war.

The same thing obviously happens in all the battle scenes of epic poems, as you can see from the following excerpt from The Iliad:

So he [Achilles] roused them, urging them on, while great Hector was shouting to the Trojans, that he would advance and tackle Achilles: /…/ With this, he drove them forward, and the Trojans faced the Greeks and raised their spears high, and the war cries rose as their forces clashed together in confusion.


In both excerpts there are troops, war cries, and heroes but there is also a big difference on which the comic effect wanted by Pope bases: Belinda and the Lord are not fighting, they are just playing cards!

To conclude, lots of classical references are interlaced in The Rape of the Lock and they are a means Pope uses to take his poem on a higher level, just to make then fun of it with an ordinary plot.


PART TWO

Religious references in The Rape of the Lock

Classical references are not the only one means used by Pope to reach his goal. In line 44 of the excerpt quoted above (“Let Spades be Trumps, she said, and Trumps they were” Canto 3, 44), there is also a biblical reference to the book of Genesis: “Let there be light: and there was light”. Biblical literacy, as well as classical literacy, was the hallmark of an educated person and this is one of the reasons why there are also many religious references in The Rape of the Lock: readers would immediately recognize them and understand the satire based on their desecration.

                            And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd,

Each silver vase in mystic order laid.

First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores

With head uncover'd, the cosmetic pow'rs.

heav'nly image in the glass appears,

that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;

Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,

Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.

(Canto I, 121–128)


Here files of pins extend their shining rows,

Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.

Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;

(Canto I, 137–139)


At the table, there are objects which she uses to conduct her rite of embellishment, and she is also worshipping an image, all elements that let the reader think of a religious ceremony. Indeed, the tools she uses are not sacred - apart from the bibles, which in their being plural are represented as pure ornaments, with no spiritual powers – and the picture she sees in the mirror is not that of God, but of herself.

Second, an altar appears also in a scene with the Baron. The Baron builds and altar to love with all the belongings of his lovers and he burns them:

But chiefly love--to love an altar built,

Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.

There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves;

And all the trophies of his former loves;

With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre,

And breathes three am'rous sighs to raise the fire.

(Canto II, 37-42)

The Baron worships himself looking at all his romantic conquests and doing so, a spiritual place for divine offices becomes a criminal file.

Third, one last altar appears at the party in canto 3:

For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd,

On shining altars of Japan they raise

The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze.

(Canto III, 105-108)

This time, the altar is a party table and the rite is that of tea and coffee being served. In all these altar scenes, blasphemy is always implied because the object of the service is never God, but always something narcissistic or trivial. The message is clear: people think more about themselves than about spiritual values.

Indeed, religious references have the aim of demonstrating Pope’s concern about the importance gained by material things, secular love and beauty, and the loss of faith. Pope best symbolizes this feeling through the last image I’m going to take into account: the cross that Belinda wears on an open-air expedition.

 


PART THREE

Conclusion

All the above listed classical and religious references contribute to make The Rape of the Lock an innovative literary work that Pope writes to show the ridiculousness of a society with no moral values. Pope’s purpose is not to mock epic, but to bring it back to life in a new form and to show how the contemporary society is far from being comparable to epic standards.

Epic battles become ridiculous card games, heroes become imperfect human beings, gods become insignificant sylphs and religious rituals become moments of self-worship: in this upside-down world, reality seems more absurd than fiction.

Using such devices as famous references, Pope catches the eye of the reader and through the disparity between style and content, he builds his satire. Effectively, the purpose of this poem is understandable from the very title: The Rape of the Lock is not the abduction of Helen of Troy, it’s just the theft of an insignificant curl of hair!

However, Alexander Pope’s mock epic was not only interesting for 18th-century society: the lesson he teaches (as a Neoclassical author, he had to put a moral in his poem) could easily be applied to   the modern society and we could all profit from such a deep, accurate, funny, and entertaining analysis. Dear sociologists, who’s the next Alexander Pope?


BIBLIOGRAPHY:

·        Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock. 1717. Toronto. Source: University of Toronto Libraries,

·        Homer. The Iliad. n.d. n.p. Source: Project Gutenberg,  

·        Homer. The Odyssey. n.d. n.p. Source: Project Gutenberg,



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