Mock epic discussion

1. The Rape of the Lock
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744)

2. Belinda
• The protagonist of the poem, Belinda is a wealthy and beautiful young woman
who travels to Hampton Court for a day of socializing and leisure. Her
remarkable beauty attracts the attention of the Baron, who snips off a lock of
her hair in his infatuation. At the beginning of the narrative, Ariel explains to
Belinda through the medium of a dream that as she is a both beautiful and a
virgin, it is his task to watch over her and protect her virtue—though as the poem
unfolds, it’s unclear if Belinda is really as virtuous as she seems. Despite the fact
that Belinda is Pope’s protagonist, she’s actually a bit of a slippery character to
come to terms with, as the reader is provided with relatively little access to her
inner thoughts, and her actions are often governed by supernatural forces. For
instance, it is unclear how much influence Ariel, a sylph, is able to exert over
her, and there is some suggestion that he actively toys with her morality. He
claims it is her virginity which makes her worthy of guarding but sends her a
dream of a handsome young man, “A youth more glitt’ring than a birthnight
beau,” tempting her sexuality. Similarly, at the end of the poem, Umbriel, throws
over her and Thalestris a bag of “Sighs, sobs and passions” and also empties a
vial of “sorrows” over her too, meaning the rage she flies into is not entirely of
her own volition. Fundamentally, as her name suggests with its literal meaning of
“beautiful”, all readers can really know about Belinda is that she is attractive.
The poem states that “If to her share some female errors fall, / Look on her
face, and you’ll forget ‘em all”—in other words, she is so beautiful that those
around her consider her basically exempt from any moral judgement, allowing
Pope to satirize the idea Ariel suggests at the opening of the poem: that beauty
and virtue always go hand in hand. Belinda is based on the real-life figure of
Arabella Fermor, who also had a lock of her hair cut off by a suitor.

3. About Alexander Pope
• Alexander Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of
the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most
prominent English poets of the early 18th century.
• An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his
satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock,
The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for his translation
of Homer.
• After Shakespeare, Pope is the second-most quoted author in
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, some of his verses having
entered common parlance (e.g. “damning with faint praise” or
“to err is human; to forgive, divine”).

4. Dedicatory Letter
• Pope added to the second edition the following dedicatory letter to Mrs.
Arabella Fermor:
• Madam, It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece,
since I dedicate it to You. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended
only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good
humour enough to laugh not only at their sex’s little unguarded follies,
but at their own. But as it was communicated with the air of a secret, it
soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been
offered to a Bookseller, you had the good nature for my sake to consent
to the publication of one more correct: This I was forced to, before I had
executed half my design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to
complete it.

5. Epic Machinary
• The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Critics, to signify that part which the
Deities, Angels, or Dæmons are made to act in a poem: For the ancient poets are in one
respect like many modern ladies: let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make
it appear of the utmost importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new and
odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.
• I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a lady; but 'tis so much the
concern of a poet to have his works understood and particularly by your sex, that you must
give me leave to explain two or three difficult terms.
• The Rosicrucians are the people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of
them is in a French book called Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its title and size is so like
a novel, that many of the fair sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these
gentlemen, the four elements are inhabited by spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes,
Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes or Dæmons of Earth delight in mischief; but the
Sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures imaginable. For they
say, any mortals may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle spirits, upon a
condition very easy to all true adepts, an inviolate preservation of Chastity.

6. Summary 1
• In the beginning of this mock-epic, Pope declares that a “dire
offence” (Canto 1 line 1) has been committed. A lord has
assaulted a “gentle belle” (line 8), causing her to reject him. He
then proceeds to tell the story of this offence.
• While Belinda is still asleep, her guardian Sylph Ariel forewarns
her that “some dread event impends”. Belinda then awakes and
gets ready for the day with the help of her maid, Betty. The
Sylphs, though unseen, also contribute: “These set the head,
and those divide the hair, some fold the sleeve, whilst others
plait the gown” (146–147). Here Pope also describes Belinda’s
two locks of hair “which graceful hung behind”. The Baron, one
of Belinda’s suitors, greatly admires these locks and conspires to
steal one. Building an altar, he places on it “all the trophies of
his former loves” (line 40), sets them on fire and fervently prays
“soon to obtain, and long possess” (line 44) the lock.

7. Summary Continued.....
• Ariel, disturbed by the impending event although not knowing what it
will be, summons many sylphs to her and instructs them to guard Belinda
from anything that may befall her, whether she "forget her prayers, or
miss a masquerade, Or lost her heart, or necklace, at a ball" (line 108–
109). So protected, Belinda arrives at Hampton Court and is invited to
play a game of ombre.
• The conspiring Baron acquires a pair of scissors and tries to snip off one
of her locks, but he is prevented by the watchful Sylphs. This happens
three times, but in the end the Baron succeeds (also cutting a Sylph in
two although Pope reassures us, parodying a passage in Paradise Lost,
that "airy substance soon unites again" [line 152]). When Belinda
discovers her lock is gone, she falls into a tantrum, while the Baron
celebrates his victory.

8. Summary Continued.....
• A gnome named Umbriel now journeys to the Cave of Spleen and from
the Queen receives a bag of “sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of
tongues” (canto 4 line 84) and a vial filled “with fainting fears, soft
sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears” (line 85–86) and brings them
to Belinda. Finding her dejected in the arms of the woman Thalestris,
Umbriel pours the contents over them both.
• Many people, moved by Belinda’s grief, demand the lock back, but the
Baron is unrepentant and refuses. Clarissa admonishes them to keep
their good humour, but they will not listen and instead a battle ensues
with glares, songs and wits as weapons. Belinda fights with the Baron
and throws snuff up his nose to subdue him. When she demands that he
restore the lock, however, it is nowhere to be found. It has been made a
constellation and is destined to outlast the contestants.

9. Adaptation and Parody
• In 1717 Giles Jacob published his bawdy parody, The Rape of the Smock,
the plot of which turns on voyeurism and enforced seduction, building on
erotic undertones present in Pope’s poem which were to be taken up by
its illustrators, and reached an apotheosis in Aubrey Beardsley’s work.
• The 1714 edition of The Rape of the Lock and those that followed from
Lintot’s press had come with six woodcuts designed by Louis Du
Guernier. Although the work of this artist has been described as
unimaginative, he goes beyond his literal brief in making Belinda sleep in
unwarranted décolletage in the first canto, while in the second giving
the “painted vessel” on its way down the Thames the tilted perspective
of the Ship of Fools. Furthermore, Du Guernier’s frontispiece owes its
iconography to a print by Étienne Baudet after a painting by Francesco
Albani of Venus at her Toilette, making for an identification of Belinda
with the goddess.

10. Mock Heroic
• Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies
that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature.
Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or
exaggerate the heroic qualities to such a point that they become absurd.
• Historically, the mock-heroic style was popular in 17th-century Italy, and in the
post-Restoration and Augustan periods in Great Britain.
• The earliest example of the form is the Batrachomyomachia ascribed to Homer
by the Romans and parodying his work, but believed by most modern scholars to
be the work of an anonymous poet in the time of Alexander the Great.
• A longstanding assumption on the origin of the mock-heroic in the 17th century is
that epic and the pastoral genres had become used up and exhausted, and so
they got parodically reprised. In the 17th century the epic genre was heavily
criticized, because it was felt expressing the traditional values of the feudal
society.