The Rape Of The Lock

Alexander Pope has long been considered one of the greatest satirists that English literary tradition has ever seen. His methods of satire are original and unique from those of the traditional Augustan poet, and his comments on the ideals and morals of his contemporaries have provided us with a valuable insight into Augustan lifestyles.
Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ has its foundation in an amorous joke played by the young Lord Petre on Miss Arabella Fermor. The ensuing rift between the two prominent aristocratic families caused a mutual acquaintance to approach Pope, with a view to healing the estrangement with the production of a humorous poem. The poem first appeared in1712 in a two-canto form, a mere 334 lines, but was revised by Pope and reappeared in its current five-canto form in 1714. This later version, which differed only slightly to the definitive 1736 edition, features elements which confirmed the status of the piece as one of the greats of the Augustan age. This final version includes a ‘Dedicatory Letter’ to Miss Fermor, which serves the purpose of excusing the previous ‘imperfect’ draft, with which the lady was less than pleased, as well as introducing the theme of the poem: the ‘little

Yet we must remember that, at this time, satire was an ‘aristocratic art’ , written for the upper classes. Pope’s main aim was not to use satire as a means to change society, rather to comment on its various idiosyncrasies and in this poem the supernatural element is an integral part of this.

Obsessed with the beauty, grace and chastity of their charges, the sylphs perform an allegorical function, representing the conventions of the Augustan society. Yet by exposing these foibles ‘through characteristics of the sylphs rather than of Belinda herself’ Pope is fulfilling the workings of satire, showing us a society obsessed with superficial splendour, class and social status. The inclusion of the sylphs allows Pope to critique the situation whilst the supernatural quality still keeps the story in the realms of fantasy. When Pope speaks in Canto II of the roles of the sylphs, the juxtaposition of guardians of the ‘British Throne’ with the idea that certain sylphs exist ‘To change a flounce, or add a furbelow’ , serves to completely deflate the passage. This is only one of many striking examples of Pope’s use of bathos as a device to aid his satire.

‘To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, / We trust the important charge, the petticoat’ . Again Pope’s use of bathos here deflates the epic style, we expect an elevated example here such as the arming of an epic hero before battle, and rather we are presented with something trivial, a further satirical comment on the superficial values of the Augustan period. Furthermore, the undergarment seems a parody of the ‘glorious armour’ of Achilles in Homer’s ‘Iliad’, and even more so with the seeming importance of the petticoat with its fifty chosen guardians.

Based on the Rosicrucian Doctrine, which would have been familiar to all intellectual minds of the age, Pope’s ‘machinery’ is made up of spirits and deities whose origins are the four elements; gnomes from earth, nymphs from water, salamanders from fire and sylphs from air. Further to the Rosicrucian beliefs, Pope suggests that these beings were once human females, who in death reverted to the elemental beings who most match their personality. It is with the ‘airy sylphs’ that our principal concerns lie, as it is these with whom Belinda, our heroine and supposed counterpart of Miss Fermor, is associated.