Page 229 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes Each personality type—scolds, undecided women, prudes, coquettes—becomes a Salamander,
Nymph, Gnome, or Sylph, respectively. These four types are associated with both the four humors
and the four elements. Having been “light coquettes” as human women, the Sylphs are most closely
affiliated with Belinda. Belinda herself is a coquette, and it is this aspect of femininity with which
Pope is most concerned.

Discuss two mock-heroic elements of the poem.
Pope explores the role of the coquette in this first canto. He demonstrates that womanly priorities
are limited to personal pleasures and social aspirations. In his description of the Sylphs during the
dream sequence, Pope enumerates coquettish vanities. As humans these women valued their
“beauteous mold” and enjoyed frivolous diversions, which they continue to take pleasure in as
sprites (48). The “joy in gilded chariots” suggests a preference for superficial grandeur and external
signifiers of wealth (55). Similarly, their “love of ombre,” a popular card game featuring elements
of bridge and poker, indicates a desire for fashionable entertainment (56). Through this love of
finery and these trivial pastimes, Pope depicts a society that emphasizes appearances rather than
moral principles. This focus on appearance extends to attitudes towards honor and virtue. Society
dictates that women remain chaste while enticing suitable husbands. Of course, if a woman seemed
to compromise herself, society would censure her as though she had lost her virtue. This concern
about female sexuality represents the underlying anxiety in The Rape of the Lock: the theft of the
lock (a metonymic substitution for Belinda’s chastity) creates the appearance of lost virtue.
At this point in the poem, however, Pope depicts Belinda not as a coquette but as a powerful figure,
similar to the (male) heroes of epic poetry. Pope reimagines Belinda’s morning routine as a hero’s
ritualized preparation before battle. Her toilette commences as a religious rite in praise of a goddess.
Belinda’s reflection in the mirror becomes the image of the goddess while her maid is the “inferior
priestess,” worshipping at the altar (127). These “sacred rites” perform a secondary purpose: once
the sacraments are performed, the goddess should protect Belinda during her day’s adventures
(128). Upon completion of the morning’s ceremony, Belinda begins to array herself, a scene which
Pope figures within the epic paradigm as the ritualized arming of the hero. The combs, pins, “puffs,
powders, patches” become the weapons and armor of this hero as the “awful Beauty [puts] on all its
arms” (138, 139). This depiction of Belinda as an epic hero establishes the mock-heroic motifs that
occur throughout the poem.

24.1.2 The Rape of the Lock: Canto II

Summary
Rivaling the sun in her beauty and radiance, Belinda sets off for Hampton Court Palace, traveling by
boat on the River Thames. A group of fashionable ladies and gentlemen accompanies her, but “every
eye was fixed on her alone” (6). Her “lovely looks” and “quick” eyes command the attention and
adoration of those who see her (9, 10). Belinda’s glittering raiment includes a “sparkling cross,” which
she wears on her “white breast,” inspiring the worship of her admirers (7). Her most striking attribute
is the “two locks which graceful hung” in ringlets on her “ivory neck” (20, 22). Pope describes these
curls as labyrinths of love intended for the “destruction of mankind,” imprisoning any hearts that get
caught in their snares (19).
One of her devotees, the Baron, greatly admires her ringlets and has resolved to steal them for
himself, “by force or by fraud” (32). On this particular morning he rose early to build an altar to
Love at which to pray for success in this venture. He created a pyre and on it sacrificed “all the
trophies of his former loves” (40). Fanning the flames with “three amorous sighs,” he burned “three
garters, half a pair of gloves” and “tender billet-doux” (42, 39, 41). The powers heard his prayer and
chose to grant half of it.

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