Discuss
The Rape of the Lock as a critique
of the contemporary fashionable society.
Or
Discuss
Pope as a satirist with reference to The
Rape of the Lock.
(The true
objective of satire is moral. It amends vice by castigation. The satirist, in
the words of Dryden, “is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician
to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease”.
Pope’s satire, too, functions in somewhat the same manner. Satire pre-dominates
the work of Pope. Even a cursory glance at his poetry reveals that the major
part of it consists of satire. The Rape
of the Lock, The Dunciad and Moral
Essays are the best of his satires. Pope wrote many satires against
individuals, which were deadly, sharp and bitter marked by malice. Stopford
Brook in comparing Dryden and Pope as satirists says, “Dryden’s satire has
relation not to the man he is satirizing, but to the whole of human race.
Pope’s satire is thin, it confines itself to the person and has no relation to
the world.” In The Rape of the
Lock, the whole panorama is limited to the 18th century
aristocratic life. Pope satirizes
the young girls and boys, aristocratic women and men, their free time
activities, nature of husbands and wives, the professional judges and
politicians of the day. )*
If Shakespeare is the poet of man, Alexander Pope is a poet of society. Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” is a social
document because it mirrors contemporary society. Pope paints about England in
18th century. The aristocracy of the 18th century England centered round a
class which was newly formed having emerged out of the commercial prosperity
of England since the exploits of the Armada victory. The aristocratic
people were primarily urban people with easy flow of money from trade
and commerce and in some classes from the hoardings of land. They
were luxury loving people, enjoying life in idle games and fun and frolic.
Being wealthy with a new-found lust for money and craze for fashion, most
imitated from the French whose influence had come through the Restoration. They
got themselves preoccupied in trivialities, gossips, sex-intrigues, and
courting ladies. The ladies of the time loved being wooed and playing coquets
to the gentlemen. The Rape of the Lock is a mirror to this kind of
society. Of which Lord Petre for men and Belinda for women are the
representative figures.....................................................................
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