How does Pope’s employment of the supernatural machinery enhance the elements of mockery in ‘The Rape of the Lock’?/ Examine the role of the sylphs in The Rape of the Lock.

How does Pope’s employment of the supernatural machinery enhance the elements of mockery in ‘The Rape of the Lock’?/ Examine the role of the sylphs in The Rape of the Lock.

The first version of ‘The Rape of the Lock’ was made up of only four cantos, containing the main incidents of the game of cards, cutting of the lock and ensuing battle therewith. This humorous piece was meant to bring about a happy reconciliation between the two families of the Fermors and Petres. This version, however, was never published and it had not yet taken on the shape of a mock-epic. It was meant to be read by a selected number of people related or close with the two families. Pope saw the possibility of expanding it into a mock-heroic poem. This was done by including into the body of the poem the supernatural creatures like the sylphs and gnomes who seem to be the guiding force behind the central action of the poem.

                                     

Pope took the name of Ariel from Shakespeare's ‘The Tempest’, and the idea of the sylphs from a French book, ‘Le Comts do Gabalis’, which gives an account of the Rosicrucian mythology of spirits. According to this mythology, the four elements are inhabited by spirits, which are called sylphs (air), gnomes (earth), nymphs (water), and salamanders (fire). Two of these kinds-sylphs and gnomes - are introduced by Pope in ‘The Rape of the Lock’. These Ariel spirits of Rosicrucian mythology were tiny, light beings, which would exactly suit his mock-heroic poem and these are as artificial as the society depicted in the poem.

In his address of the poem to the heroine, Miss Arabella Fermor, Pope tells why there is supernatural machinery in the poem:

“The Machinery, Madam, is a Term invented by the Critics, to signify that Part which the Deities, Angels, or Daemons, are made to act in a poem. . . .”......................................................................

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