Page 247 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes supernatural machinery, battle and war, the journey to the underworld and all the rest, transported
down to the level of mock epic and becoming, there, high language-low content, Sylphs, drawing
room wars of the sexes and a battle of frowns, snuff and a bodkin, and a journey to the Cave of
Spleen.
From Horace we have the exposing of folly not with malice or anger, but with an authorial smile:
“But tell me, what law is violated if someone laughs/while speaking truth?” (S.1) Secondly, though
Book I of Satires is almost obtuse in it directness, Book II, representing a more artistically mature
Horace—and so best exemplifying his style, demonstrates a more indirect and more comic method
of teaching. This is achieved by exaggerating the moral instruction, and by using comic sometimes
absurd characters to voice those lessons. We might conclude, at risk of oversimplification, that The
Rape of the Lock is composed of mock epic elements and style and the Horatian attitude.
When Pope called the poem “an heroicomical poem”, he intended to mean it a mock-epic. He could
assume that his eighteenth century readers, educated in the classical and knowledgeable about
epic, would recognise that it was a mockery. Besides, the mock-epic, which Boileau had established
as a distinctive poetic genre with his poem Le Lutrin, was well-suited to the eighteenth century.
Unlike the burlesque, which lampoons the epic, it plays off a high sense of the heroic against the
diminished scale of contemporary life. In this confrontation, Pope might be expected to have a clear
allegiance to the classical epic poets. His veneration of the classical antiquity is on record in the
Essay on Criticism, and his low opinion of the general character of contemporary life is evident in
the Moral Essays and Intimations of Horace. It is worthy of remark therefore that in The Rape of the
Lock Pope presents a world dominated by trivialities in terms of an epic grandeur. The fashionable
society of the beaux and belles is not only allowed the defects but also the advantages of its scale. In
the midst of its ironies the poem delights in the exotic preparations and instruments of Belinda’s
toilet and in the exquisiteness of the sylphs. It extends rapturous complimentary to Belinda and
expresses genuine sympathy for the pathetic fate of the belles it mocks.
Many of Pope’s jokes in the poem derive their significance from the epic tradition. Epic subjects
were grand; for instance, the Trojan War (Iliad), the founding theme (Aeneid), the Fall of Man
(Paradise Lost) were narrated at length in twelve or more books, each consisting of several hundred
lines. The epic hero also traversed a wide geographical area encountering battles, romantic interludes,
journeyed by land and sea and even descended into the underworld. From on high the gods watched
the human drama, intervening when they chose at critical moments. Success for the hero was
dependent upon the subplot of divine intrigue as well as his own courage and skill. The mock
heroic imitated the most recognisable aspects of the epic, its form and elevated language. It used an
inflated style to ridicule the pretensions and pomposity of minor quarrel. Pope also borrowed
elaborate phrases and similes from the great epics of the western tradition. The joke lies in his
applying this elevated language to “the life of the modern ladies in the idle town”, as he deprecatingly
described the subject of “The Rape of the Lock” in a letter to a lady friend.
Pope consciously imitates the epic opening in his first twelve lines, which may be called the invocation
in the approved epic manner. He too will ‘sing’ his subject whose importance he indicates by inverted
syntax and elevated language: “dire offence”, “mighty contest”, “tasks so bold”. He addresses the
muse in order to invoke inspiration. His tone does gather declamatory epic ring as he commands
the goddess: “Say what strange motive…?” At some points we begin to sense that Pope is not mocking
the epic form so much as laughing at his subject. Once we realise that we are reading a mock-epic,
it casts a different light on the apparent solemnity and dignity of Pope’s propositions and invocation.
The first hint of the mock-epic comes from the third line of the poem when Pope credits a human
being, Caryll, rather than the muse with inspiring his poem. The lines from five to six have the
effect of an anticlimax:
“Slight is the subject, but not so the praise If she inspire and approve my lays.”
As for the supernatural machinery, which neoclassical criticism considers indispensable for an epic,
Pope reveals remarkable inventiveness. The sylphs of “The Rape of the Lock” are Pope’s mocking
recreation of the gods who watch over the heroes of epics and guide their fortune. It is nicely fitting

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