Rape of the lock

Thinking Task : Rape of the lock

1.According to you, who is the protagonist of the poem Clarissa or Belinda? Why? Give your answer with logical reason. 

Ans. According to me Clarissa was the protagonist because we only things in one way the beautiful charming and good hearted woman are the fit in the frame of heroine and protagonist to Play and Poem everything. We just thik only that ways also Belinda have good hair or beauty no doubt but on the other hand she also have pride to their beauty and hair Clarissa just break down mirror of her beauty or we can say she give the mirror to Belinda that is not beauty or not only your hair is symbol of beauty and charm. 

2.What is beauty? Write your views about it

Ans. In my own view of beauty as a woman or girl I don't judge with skin tone or the body figure of any woman or even men. I think beauty is your Sanskaar or we can say goodness of your heart how people feel with you secure goodness of your nature to share their emotion, your decision, and also good virtue and good soul there's the beauty otherwise to make your face beautiful many products in market, for your hair also many products in market but make your heart or soul no products in market. 

                                   I believe in the beauty of eyes because your eyes speak more than your lips. Sometimes your lips can't speak your feelings but your eyes speak emotion. 

3.Find out a research paper on "The Rape of the Lock". Give the details of the paper and write down in brief what does it say about the Poem by Alexander Pope.

Ans. CONTEMPERORY WOMENHOOD IN SOCIETY IN POPE’S THE RAPE 

OF THE LOCK

S. Selva Priya, V.Saranya Devi

1

(Lecturer Deparment Of English, Nadar Saraswathi College of Arts and Science, Theni.)

2*(M.A English Student, Nadar Saraswathi College of Arts and Science, Theni.)

The literature of eighteenth century is often known as the Augustan period. The Augustan Age was the period after the Restoration era to the death of Alexander Pope (1690 - 1744). Pope and John Dryden in poetry, and Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison in prose were the major writers of the age. The literature of this period which conformed to Pope's aesthetic principles (and could thus qualify as being 'Augustan') is distinguished by its striving for harmony and precision, its urbanity, and its imitation of classical models such as Homer, Cicero, Virgil, and Horace. Pope particularly focuses on the rituals of womanhood and is highly condescending towards women. His humor is often offensive and points to a more widespread view and interpretation of the value of women in society. Pope manages to marginalize women, in particular Belinda, by turning this incident, the de-locking-into a mock epic, mocking Belinda and discounting her worth. Pope uses Belinda to represent early 18th century women and satirically poke fun at their silly ways.In “The Rape of the Lock”, Pope expresses the follies of women and society, and hopes that a few may admit and enjoy the humor within their follies. The underlying picture of women presented in the poem is a genuine one. It is a copy of real womanhood of the age. The poem presents women as beings who are all frivolous and whose genuine interest is in love making. The poem tells us that fashionable ladies like Belinda used to get up very late in the day. Their maids waited in an ante-chamber. The ladies were awakened from their dream of love to the smell of perfume. They went to bathroom and engaged themselves in the task of fashionable dressing and powdering the face. Jewels, cosmetics, powder, rows of pins, scents and paints lay in the magnificent array on the toilet table alone with small nicely bound copies of the bible.Ladies of the tike wanted to make them as attractive as possible and frivolity in every action was the watchword of their lives. They always remained in the company of their admires the fops and gallants of the day. They loved their lap dogs as much as their husbands. Flattery was too high and too low for them. They would readily swallow the highest and gratefully accept the lowest. Pope describes every feature of the then ladies very clearly and honestly.The young gallants of the time have been pictured as beaux or dances. Chivalry was dead among them as is shown when the baron rudely cuts a lock of hair from Belinda’s head. The youths of the day were very much fashionable about their dresses. They drove in coaches with women, danced and drank with them. They thought themselves most unfortunate if they did not or could not have half a dozen beloveds at a time.Love making was the essence of their life. The pursuit of women was their chief object. They used to take pleasure in pretty affairs. They visited ladies and accompanied them to the theatres. Their minds were hollow, their spirit unclean. A fashionable coquet was their goddess, love their altar and their victuals were French romances and love letters of past beloveds. This way pope described all about the then society very frankly. What he saw, he wrote Lowell says, “It was a mirror in a drawing room but it grave back a faithful image of society.”It was not known if pope intended to publish the poem for general reading public in the beginning. The manuscript was originally meant to be confirmed in the two families. Some daring publisher somehow had an access to it and printed a pirated edition. This infuriated Arabella Fermor with whom the incident already occurred as it was her personal affair. Anyhow pope convinced her and after getting her permission she allowed the publisher to publish. So the first version of the poem appeared in 1712.It had only two cantos then. But its immense and popular reception by public encourage one to add more cantos and thus the poem appeared in the present form of five cantos. On publication it proved to be a meritorious literary work. As a satire, as a mock heroic, as a piece of pure wit, as a display of masterly use of the heroic couplet, as an achievement of style, it is great. Historically it is a great poem, politically it is a read poem and structurally it is a great poem.The supernatural machinery of the poem has been designed on the Rosicrucian doctrine as formulated by Le Comte in Germany in theseventeenth c entury. According to this theory, four elements fire, water, earth and air were inhabited by four kinds of spirits salamanders, gnomes, nymphs and sylphs. We meet all in the Rape of the lock. The machines which are supernatural beings are diminutive. They have insect wings. They can change their shape and sex. They can see the future. They can inspect the heart of the mortals. They are airy and unsubstantial and remain invisible to the human eyes. They play an important role in the poem. They hang about Belinda’s ear rings and watch her petticoat.