Pope
as the representative of the 18th Century
Introduction: A great work of
art, though universal in its appeal, is the most typical product of its time.
It is rooted in the contemporary social and cultural life and
reflects, implicitly or explicitly, that life is in its essence and totality.
It is an indispensable prerequisite for the greatness of a work of art. If it
fails to be of its own age, almost as a rule, it will also fail to be universal
in its appeal. It is a great poem by all cannons of art and it does all that
admirably. Its focus mainly captures the typical features of the
aristocratic class of its time.
The Rape of The Lock gives a
complete and graphic picture of the 20th century. The Rape
of The Lock is concerned with the aristocratic society and presents a charming
portrait of itsfeatures. This portrait is not presented in word-pictures of
descriptive passages; but is richly suggested through the mock-epic adventures
of Lord Petre and Belinda – the representative figures of the society.
The aristocratic of the 18th century English was a newly formed class,
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 fromtrade 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, mostly 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.
Mirror to the 18th century: The
Rape of the Lock is a mirror to this kind of society. Of which Lord Petre and
Belinda are the representative figures. Belinda is presented as dazzling
charming like the sun, and lap-dogs were another indispensable ingredient of
their lives.
Now lap-dogs give themselves the
rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at
twelve, awake:
It is significant that how Pope
brackets lap-dogs and lovers as though lovers were no better than lap-dogs.
Glittering fashion, celebrations
in the form of parties, dances with amorous intentions beneath, were the
typical features of the people belonging to the aristocratic class.
Ariel’s speech that Belinda hears in a state of dreaming portraits the
sex-intrigues of the dancing balls. The ladies spent more time applying to
themselves beauty aids, a large variety of cosmetics from distant
lands. They were always burning to win the heart of their lover. They spent
hours at the toilets, played card games, danced and considered the dressing
table a place of worship. Coquetry was the only art that these ladies practiced
sedulously: rolling the eye ball for furtive glances or winking in a debonair,
apparently indifferent manner, blushing at the right moment to attract the
admiring eyes, were the manners that they worked hard to acquire. The ladies as
well as the gallant young men were fickle-minded, inconsistent, unreliable
frankly trivializing valuable human relationship. Pretension, dissimulation and
hypocrisy constituted their way of life. Levity was their common
characteristic. The following shows their picture.
On the rich guilt sinks with
becoming woe,
Wrapt in a gown, for sickness,
and for show.
The fair ones feel such maladies
as these,
When each new night-dress gives a
new disease
Pope gives minute details of the
ladies’ constant concern for enhancing their beauty effect with
artificial means. For these ladies, the conventionally serious things of life
had lost their importance. Their moods and passion were ruled by trivialities.
Trifles would make them anxious or angry. These ladies, in other words, were
devoid of any real moral sense, or any serious, meaningful purpose in life.
To them, the death of husbands affected them only as much as that of their
lap-dog or breaking of China jars. Honor, to them, was almost equal
to nothing. The loss of chastity was no more serious than staining of brocades.
To them Church meant nothing. Missing a church congregation was not a serious
affair, but missing a ball was considered an important thing. Losing heart or
indulging in sex was less important than the loss of a necklace.
All this goes to show that utter
moral confusion prevailed in the aristocracy of the eighteenth century. Serious
purpose had evaporated from their lives. Men were chiefly concerned with
getting richer and carrying on sexual adventures with fashion-frenzy coquettish
ladies. Their love letters were more sacred to them than the Bible. In
the Rape of the Lock, the adventurous Baron builds an Alter of Love; it is
built of twelve voluminous French romances and all the prizes gained from him
former love; and significantly, the fire at the altar is raised with the heaps
of love-letters that he had received. Lord Petre’s sense of victory at the
cutting of Belinda’s lock is symbolic of the shallowness, triviality, in fact,
the emptiness of the youths of the contemporary aristocratic class.
Shallowness of Judges, the
fashion of coffee-taking.
The hungry judges soon the
sentence sign
And wretches hang that the jury-men
dine
“Coffee, (which makes the
politician wise,)
and see through all things with
half-shut eyes”
The Rape of the Lock is an
epitome of the eighteenth century social life. In this poem, Pope has caught
and fixed for ever the atmosphere of the age. No great English poet is at once
so great and so empty, so artistic and yet so void of the ideal on which all
high art rests. As Dixon asserts: Pope is the protagonist of a
whole age, of an attitude of mind and manner of writing. Hence, the poem is
highly arresting because of its presentation of social life of the age. It
reflects and mirrors the contemporary society.
Conclusion: Pope fully bears the
witticism of its age. In his conception of theme and selection of the tile,
Pope displays his unsurpassable wit. This was the kind of life led by the
fashionable people of the upper classes in the age of Pope, and Pope has
described it in gorgeous colors on the one hand and with scathing satire on the
other. While it shows the grace and fascination of Belinda’s toilet, he
indicates the vanity and futility of it all. There is nothing deep or serious
in the lives and activities of the fashionable people, all is vanity and
emptiness and this Pope has revealed with art and brilliance. The Rape of the
Lock reflects the artificial age with all its outward splendor and inward
emptiness. It the mirror of a particular aspect of life in the age of Pope. It
was, says, Lowell, a mirror in a drawing room, but it gave back a faithful
image of society.
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