Canto 1,2,3,4,5, explained , brief summary, main characters and there role in the Canto , demythologising epic poetry ,mock epic strategies.

1. The Rape of the Lock
explain all 5 Canto .
Presented by
Mahir Pari Goswami
( Teaching assistant )
Gopinathji Mahila College Sihor

2. Canto -I
• In this first canto, Pope exemplifies quite accurately what
the mock-epic is and how the poet uses the epic
conventions to downgrade and ridicule the epic genre
proper [L. 79-98].
• Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid present gods
and goddesses that guide heroes in their adventures and
substantially condition their decision-making.
• We could say that epic heroes are strongly controlled by
the gods, who decisively intervene in most human events.
• In The Rape of the Lock, we perceive the same situation,
although the connotations are completely different.
• Sylphs teach women to exalt their beauty and to cultivate
their physical appearance .

3. • In the final section of the first canto [L. 115-148],
Pope focuses on the way Belinda eventually wakes
up and gets off from bed.
• Once she gets up, Belinda enters the toilette and
there the reader encounters a wide range of
cosmetic products.
• One of the most important details of these final
lines is how Pope identifies Belinda’s dressing
table with a sort of sanctuary or religious shrine.

4. Main characters and their role in
the canto
• Pope introduces two main characters and a series
of minor figures in this first canto: we have
already mentioned Belinda, the main protagonist
and on whom the action of the poem is sustained.
• From the reading of this first section, we are able
to put together her basic physical and
psychological features.

5. • Besides Belinda, Pope also introduces Ariel, a
mysterious creature that, towards the end of the
canto, addresses the reader and briefly anticipates
the main traits of the supernatural characters that
are going to appear in the poem.
• Their main function is to watch over the “belles”
and “beaux” in order to protect their honour and
integrity, and, at the same time, to encourage
them to embellish their image.
• This creature also enables Pope to demystify the
role that high deities such as Zeus traditionally
played out in classical epic poetry.

6. • Ariel resembles Zeus, since both of them observe
human actions from above. But there all
similarities end.
• Ariel is an insignificant sylph, Zeus is an almighty
deity; Ariel contemplates a trivial fact that is
about to take place, Zeus observes the horrors and
calamities of war, death and destruction.

7. Demythologising epic poetry: mock-
epic strategies
• However, the eighteenth century was not a
particularly suitable time for epic, due mainly to
the absence of figures akin to Hector or Achilles in
society. Therefore, though Pope was never able to
capture the bellicose and heroic atmosphere of
Homer and Virgil’s, his translation experience
allowed him to get acquainted with the
fundamental traits of epic.

8. • This explains why The Rape of the Lock, though
distinctly mock-epic, shows a deeply elaborate
body of connotations associated to battles or to
war proper. However, the poem, instead of
mirroring violence and cruelty, centres on much
more trivial aspects, such as a game of cards.

9. • However, it is very significant to see how Pope
describes the way Belinda makes herself up, since
it occasionally acquires the dimension of a rite,
either pagan or religious.
• We have already referred to the resemblances
that exist between Belinda’s toilet and a sacred
sanctuary, and the way Pope approaches Belinda’s
toilette as though it were a religious ceremony.
• Nevertheless, for his mock-epic purposes, Pope
also regards Belinda as a warrior that is preparing
herself to go into the battlefield.

10. Canto II
• After introducing the two main characters and
explaining the cause that activates the conflict,
Pope devotes most of this second canto to a
description of the supernatural creatures he
mentioned before [L. 52-90].
• In this central passage, Pope insists in portraying
sylphs, nymphs, gnomes and zephyrs in terms of
gods and goddesses of the Olympus.

11. • In principle, all of them occupy a heavenly
position with respect to human beings, a position
that allows them to observe and evaluate all that
happens on earth.
• Likewise, all those nymphs and sylphs seem to be
in charge of safeguarding and protecting the moral
and physical integrity of ladies.

12. Main characters and their role in
the canto
• In this second canto, the author’s focus is more on
secondary characters. As we pointed out above,
Belinda’s counterpart is also briefly mentioned in
this second canto.
• The Baron, who is the fictional alter-ego of Lord
Petre, is the one who contrives the rape of
Belinda’s lock, although his intervention in this
canto is not very significant.

13. Demythologising epic poetry:
mock-epic strategies
• Mock-epic in this second canto is fundamentally
connected with the ethereal beings we
commented on before. We can see how the poet
describes all the preparations that precede the
battle.
• If we remember Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, we can
actually appreciate the solemnity of these
preliminary moments In The Rape of the Lock,
because the reader can witness a similar scene.

14. • Therefore, what we see in this second canto are
the preparations for the combat, in which Ariel is
in charge of assigning duties and motivating his
army to defend Belinda’s honour.
• Nevertheless, the duties Ariel allots establish a
ridiculous comparison with respect to those of the
great epics.

15. Canto III
• The beginning of this canto is probably the most
satirical of all that appear in The Rape of the Lock
[L. 1-24].
• Retaking the image of the Thames illuminated by
the fading sun, Pope presents a biting portrait of
England at the time, concentrating mainly on the
state of monarchy and the judiciary.
• Pope wittily criticises the excessive idleness of the
noble and aristocratic classes, who spent their
time drinking coffee or tea.

16. • Pope sarcastically justifies the visible lack of activity
among these upper classes, and, even regards their
idleness in terms of the socio-political and economic
development of the country.
• The use of the word “instructive” also highlights the
ironic undertones of these initial lines.
• Talking about instructive questions does not, in this
context, mean to discuss cultural or intellectual
disquisitions, but rather, to discover who gave the
ball and who attended it.
• Pope’s satirical overview on the social machinery of
his time finishes with several allusions to judges and
the English legal administration. Once again, Pope
draws on satire to paint the judiciary as lazy and
unprofessional.

17. • Line 21 gives away the kind of judges England had
at the time. They go over their pending cases very
quickly, simply because they want to satiate their
hunger.
• This fact manifests the professional involvement
of judges and the dubious validity of the decisions
they take.
• After this brief but intensely satirical
introduction, the poem focuses on the game of
cards.
• Three players go in for the game: Belinda, the
Baron and a third character whose identity is
unknown.
• The game selected is Ombre, an eighteenth-
century version of bridge.

18. • All the paraphernalia that surrounds this game of
cards reminds us of the battles Homer or Virgil
depicted in their epic poems.
• The warfare terminology Pope uses is even more
prolific than in the previous cantos, something
that intensifies the mock-epic atmosphere of the
poem.
• -The final stages of this canto [L. 130-178] move
towards the poem’s climax: after a tense Ombre
card-game, the Baron eventually manages to cut
off Belinda’s lock

19. Main characters and their role in
the canto
• We again find references to Belinda and the
Baron, and a new character whose identity is not
revealed in the poem. The formal and thematic
novelty is articulated around the presence of a
series of cards.
• This game of cards can also be helpful in order to
better approach the personal and psychological
profile of the characters.

20. • Throughout the poem, we have regarded Belinda
as a trivial and superficial lady, exclusively
concerned with her outward appearance and
dedicated to the numerous social events she has
to attend.
• Once the game commences, she gets to know the
Baron’s intentions, which leads her to adopt a
much more vigilant position, distrusting the
Baron’s advances and trying to position
adequately her “troops of cards”.
• The terminology that is associated with Belinda
usually has an underlying sexual connotation,
especially when the lock is mentioned.

21. • What Pope is describing here is the Baron’s
various attempts to cut off the lock from Belinda’s
hair. However, if we read in close-up we can see
that his words can be interpreted in a different
way.
• The Baron’s desire to get Belinda’s lock projects in
some sense his own sexual appetites -even the
title of the poem is quite ambiguous in this
respect.
• The allusion to virginity in line 140 turns out to be
significant and proves the fact that what Pope is
describing is not merely a lock being cut off.

22. Demythologising epic poetry:
mock-epic strategies
• Once the armies are ready, Pope sets them in a
very peculiar battlefield. Although the scene
appears ordinary, Pope evokes an epic
atmosphere in which cards compete to defeat
each other.
• The mock-heroic background resides mainly in
how Pope substitutes epic heroes for mere cards.

23. • The language used for the description of this
pseudo-battle is elaborate and highly rhetorical:
there are many terms related to warfare and
military strategies, as well as to its life and
hierarchy.
• Pope’s grandiloquent style manages to turn this
dispute into something as transcendental as, for
instance, the Battle of Troy.

24. Canto IV
• The opening lines of the canto [L.1-16] depict the
aftermath of the combat. Belinda and her
sheltering nymphs and sylphs are distressed
because of the loss of her lock.
• One of the most outstanding elements in the
poem is the so-called “Cave of Spleen” Pope
mentions in line 16.
• This Cave is entirely filled with crooked creatures
performing the most grotesque activities.

25. • Following very typical epic patterns, Umbriel
addresses the Goddess of Spleen [L. 57-78]. His
speech, though dramatic and emotional, is also
tinged by the same sense of triviality and
looseness. On his return, Umbriel contemplates a
touching and disconcerting scene: Belinda,
absolutely out of her wits, is laying in bed.
• Belinda is now transformed due to the effects of
Spleen, and emerges as an enraged and hysterical
woman, two attitudes that Pope and many
eighteenth-century satirists criticised about
woman’s behaviour.

26. • The last lines of the poem portray a tense
dialogue between Sir Plume, one of the characters
who strives for the protection of Belinda’s honour,
and the Baron, who still insists in keeping the
trophy he has won.
• This conversation shows how the finesse that has
been the key in the previous cantos is suddenly
dropped. Sir Plume uses oaths and, even, four
letter words, but the Baron remains firm in his
position.
• The canto ends with Belinda’s sorrowful words in
which she laments having been placed in this
situation. She would have preferred to be driven
into exile to an isolated island instead of being
humiliated in this way.

27. Main characters and their role in
the canto
• This canto gravitates around two dialogues and
one final monologue, in which several characters
take part. The first dialogue between Umbriel and
Goddess Spleen portrays how women were
considered at that time.
• According to Umbriel’s words, women were ruled
by Spleen, a fact that encouraged the most
changeable and hysterical behaviour [l. 59-61].
• Spleen can make a woman turn towards poetic or
intellectual issues, or alternatively, as Umbriel
states, become moody or hysteric.

28. • There are two important aspects we should
concentrate upon in these lines. First of all,
Belinda assumes that her life can no longer be
sustained on her external appearance because it is
ephemeral. She establishes a very sound
comparison with the roses that blossom and die
to exemplify how quickly youth goes by.
• Secondly, Belinda partially blames herself for her
flirtatious disposition [L. 159], and she believes
that nothing would have happened if she had not
behaved in that way. Belinda also longs for
solitude in a place where riches and material
possessions are no longer important .

29. Demythologising epic poetry: mock-
epic strategies
• Canto IV contains two moments that come to
demystify classical epic narratives. One of the
most important moments in Homer’s epic is
Ulysses’s ordeal in the world of the dead in which
he encounters important characters and listens to
mythical stories about the past of their nations.
• Pope also uses an analogous framework to this in
order to subvert one of the most significant
aspects of epic poetry.

30. • What Ulysses encounters in the underworld is
sorrow and death, an experience that makes him
feel anguished.
• The reader cannot perceive this same grief when
Umbriel descends to the Cave of Spleen.
• We pointed out before that he also sees ghosts
and visions around him, but he is principally
shocked by the grotesque combination of objects
and people.
• He sees jars, bottles, and instead of distinguished
personalities, he sees Pain, Affectation, Ill Nature
and Megrim, Goddess Spleen’s advocates.
Moreover, he does not listen to stories about the
mythical past of any nation, but only “Goose-pye”
talks.

31. • The second moment in which mock-epic forcefully
arises is Belinda’s lament at the end of the canto.
Once again, Pope toys with incongruous
parallelisms and tone.
• Achilles’ mourn is caused by the death of his
closest friend, whilst Belinda’s grief is brought
about by a nuisance.
• However, Pope disguises this apparent triviality by
means of a language that almost impels us to
sympathise with Belinda’s sorrow, as we do with
Achilles’ .

32. Canto V
• This set of questions are conceived to cast doubts
upon the attitude that Belinda, and generally
speaking, many members of the upper classes, were
adopting at that time.
• Clarissa wonders why beauty is praised and good
sense discarded, and why men can fall exclusively
for the lady’s physical appearance, disregarding her
spiritual or intellectual capacities.
• She considers these glories something vain and
worthless if good sense do not preserve them [L. 15-
16].

33. • Clarissa also refers to the fact that ageing can also
affects ugly and beautiful alike. The nymph argues
that cultivating one’s image so much can lead to
impoverishing your mental faculties, since we are
all destined to get old [L. 25-28].
• The way Clarissa criticises people’s frailties is
reflected on how her complete indifference about
the manner in which the hair is combed or the
face made-up. She recommends, then, to keep
good humour as the best way to come to terms
with our own ageing [L. 31-32].

34. • Nevertheless, in spite of Clarissa’s sound words,
nobody listening to her speech seem to agree with
her. Then, the confrontation for the recovery of
the lock breaks out again.
• Belinda counterattacks and pursues the Baron
with fierceness ([L. 75]). The Baron resists
Belinda’s assault, but is overcome by her snuff.

35. Main characters and their role in the
canto
• The last section in The Rape of the Lock introduces
Clarissa, who appears as the most reasonable and
stable of all the characters that appear in the
poem. Her speech dismantles all the values of the
English upper classes.
• It seems that Pope’s decision to add a new canto
to the original The Rape of the Lock was due to
the fact that all the characters that appear in it
required a kind of counterpart to refute and
contradict the ideas they defend.

36. • It is also interesting to note how Belinda’s mood
changes completely in this final section. At the
end of canto IV, she appeared as a resigned
woman who has apparently decided to begin a
new life.
• After listening to Clarissa’s speech, we see how
this character starts off the struggle again,
adopting an aggressive position and leading a
violent attack against the Baron.

37. • Apparently, Pope wanted to prove that women’s
mood varied rapidly and unexpectedly [L. 35-38].
The reason that apparently triggers off this assault
is the fact that she cannot bear the idea of losing
her physical beauty, which also explains why she
completely changes her mind from one canto to
the other.

38. Demythologising epic poetry:
mock-epic strategie
• Perhaps, it is canto V that best exemplifies what
mock-epic is. The reason why Pope added a new
section to the four-canto version he published in
1714 was because he wanted to insert a modern
rendering of Sarpedon’s speech to Glaucus, taken
from Homer’s Iliad.
• The similarities between them are worth noting in
order to check the mock-epic alterations Pope
introduces in The Rape of the Lock. The essence of
both fragments -they are both conceived as a
warning about how ephemeral life is_is basically
the same.

39. • Issues such as the triviality of fame, the passing of
time or the eagerness to gather riches and
material possessions run almost parallel courses in
both texts.
• There are some other moments in the text in
which mock-epic can be perfectly appreciated.
• When Belinda eventually attacks the Baron, we
can see how she uses the weapons she has at her
disposal. However, her military outfit is very
unorthodox.

40. • Belinda’s weapons are not swords, spears,
daggers, shields or helmets, simply puffs and
powders [L. 81-82].
• Instead of throwing spears or arrows, Belinda
blows a kind of tobacco powder towards the
Baron in order to make him sneeze.

41. Work Citation
• Palma, A. (n.d.). THE RAPE OF THE LOCK reading
guide. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/20795927/THE_RAPE
_OF_THE_LOCK_reading_guide