Wycherley, whose play measures contemporary culture by a cynical, satiric standard, allowing no illusions, exposing the basis of widely touted ideals

Astell, whose essay measures contemporary society by its deep misguidance of women and whose proposal is meant to change women’s minds.

Now we read Alexander Pope, who measures contemporary culture by standards set in classical antiquity.

What we have seen so far . . .

1

The Rape of the Lock, 1712 & 1714• Astell’s critique of culture centered on

the position of women.• Pope’s critique of culture uses woman

as the occasion of critique.

Alexander Pope1688-1744

2

Roman Catholic family || Strong friendships with literary-political figures such as Jonathan Swift || Physical disability from childhood tuberculosis

What is ’t to me (a passenger, God wot)Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?The ship itself may make a better figure,But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger.

Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace ImitatedThe Second Epistle of the Second Book of Horace

Pope’s life, circumstances & quarrels

3

But Appius reddens at each Word you speak,And stares, Tremendous! With a threatening Eye,Like some fierce Tyrant . . . Essay on Criticism

In return:“As there is no Creature so venomous, there is nothing so stupid and impotent as a hunch-back’d Toad” John Dennis, Reflections on the Essa.y

“This little Author may extol the Ancients as much and as long as he pleases, but he has reason to thank the good Gods that he was born a Modern. For had he been born of Graecian Parents, and his Father by consequence had by Law the absolute Disposal of him, his Life had been no longer than tht of one of his Poems, the Life of half a Day. (Dennis:, Life, p. 184.)

Pope’s life, circumstances & quarrels (2)

4

A satirical print against Pope from Pope Alexander (1729). The print was also sold separately. It shows Pope as a monkey, because the satirist calls him "A--- P—E," and he sits atop a stack of Pope's works and wears a papal tiara (referring to Pope's Roman Catholicism). The Latin at the top means "Know thyself," and the verse at the bottom is Pope's own satire on Thersites from Essay on Criticism. This was only one of many attacks on Pope after the Dunciad Variorum. Wikipedia

5

6

The Poetical Tom-Titt perch'd upon the Mount of Love, Being the Representation of a Merry Description in Mr Cibber's Letter to Mr Pope. Anon. 1742© Trustees of the British Museum in the UK (AN357021001)

This satirical engraving depicts an incident at a brothel near Haymarket, which probably occured in 1715 (Rogers, The Alexander Pope Encyclopedia 322), and involved Edward Rich, seventh Earl of Warwick, Colley Cibber, and Pope. The image shows Cibber seizing tiny Pope's leg and pulling him off a naked woman sprawled upon a sofa, while Warwick looks on.

Does not Satiric Pope your Laughter moveThus perching pertly on the Mount of Love?How much had British poetry to fearTill 'twas retriev'd by Colley's kindly Care?What greater good from Cibber cou'd we hopeWho gave us Homer by his saving Pope?The engraving appeared following a public feud between Pope and Colley Cibber, playwright and Poet Laureate. For a fuller description of these events, see the description for the print titled "An Essay on Woman by the Author of the Essay on Man."

7

See Colley Cibber entry in Wikipedia :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colley_Cibber

Pope's animosity began in 1717 when he helped John Arbuthnot and John Gay write a farce, Three Hours After Marriage, in which one of the characters, "Plotwell" was modelled on Cibber.[83]

Notwithstanding, Cibber put the play on at Drury Lane with himself playing the part of Plotwell, but the play was not well received. During the staging of a different play, Cibber introduced jokes at the expense of Three Hours After Marriage, while Pope was in the audience.[84]

Pope was infuriated, as was Gay who got into a physical fight with Cibber on a subsequent visit to the theatre.[85]

Pope published a pamphlet satirising Cibber, and continued his literary assault for the next 25 years

8

John Caryll, Pope’s friend, told him about

a quarrel that developed between two

aristocratic Cahtolic families after Lord

Petre cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor’s

hair. Caryll asked Pope to write a poem

about it that would allow the families to

make up.

The Occasion for Rape of the Lock

9

the family quarrel—which is actually not his problem but the occasion of his poem.

the distance between his own culture and the well-established classical tradition in which he works.

But – in fact, the circumstances of contemporary culture created immense poetic opportunity for Pope.

So the problem for Pope is . . .

10

Canto I: Invocation of the Muse. Ariel explains the sylphs’ responsibilities & brings Belinda a dream. Belinda wakes up & gets ready for her day.

Canto II. Belinda appears & the Baron is attracted to her. Boat trip on the Thames; Ariel tells the sylphs their duties.

Canto III. The Game of Ombre with the cards engaging in an epic battle. Belinda wins; the Baron takes action.

Canto IV.Umbriel goes down to the Cave of Spleen; Belinda is chagrined.

Canto V. Clarissa’s speech. Epic battle. The LOCK is lost but transformed.

11

Invoke the achievements of the past as a measure of the culture of the present

Invite contemporary readers to unite in their shared cultureReaders who have not read Homer and Virgil

can allow Rape of the Lock to create the aesthetic, social, and moral values on which the poem depends.

Unlike The Dunciad, which is more radically critical, The Rape of the Lock seems to suggest a continued confidence in the inherited culture.

To use the “heroic” as Pope does is to

12

What dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs, What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things,I sing — This Verse to C——, 3 Muse! is due;This, ev'n Belinda may vouchfafe to view:Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise,If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.

Looking closely at the poem

13

--refers to a figure of speech in which the same word is applied to two others in different sensesSome (not so elegant) examples

He lost his coat and his temper."Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his

leave.”She dug for gold and for praise.She made her breakfast and the bed.

Look for examples of zeugma in the print-scape that surrounds you.

Zeugma: what is it? Yoking or bonding Examples from internet

14

“Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,And now a bubble burst, and now a world.” (Essay on Man)

“But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus an unweighed fear.” Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried)

“She lowered her standards by raising her glass,Her courage, her eyes and his hopes.”

Flanders and Swann, Have Some Madeira, M’Dear

Other examples

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Whether the Nymph shall break Diana's Law,Or some frail China Jar receive a Flaw,Or stain her Honour, or her new Brocade,Forget her Pray'rs, or miss a Masquerade,Or lose her Heart, or Necklace, at a Ball;Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall.

(II, 105 ff)

It creates a disjunction (sometimes a mash-up). Why does disjunction work for mock-heroic?

Zeugma: what this figure of speech can accomplish

16

Here Britain's Statesmen oft the Fall foredoomOf Foreign Tyrants, and of Nymphs at home;Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey,Dost sometimes Counsel take — and sometimes Tea. (III, 5-8)

Compare the lines that follow:Hither the Heroes and the Nymphs resort,To taste awhile the Pleasures of a Court; [3.10]In various Talk th' instructive hours they past,Who gave the Ball, or paid the Visit last:One speaks the Glory of the British Queen,And one describes a charming Indian Screen.

17

Zeugma: further examples

--stain her Honour, or her new Brocade--lose her Heart, or Necklace

Carefully balanced structure + imbalanced substance

Compare disjunctive lists:Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux. (I, 137-8)

Read the whole “toilette” scene closely.

Compare Pope’s milder with Swift’s more biting disjunctions:

18

Disjunction: creates comic effect and asks for judgment from reader

19

I could not forbear shaking my head, and smiling a little at his ignorance. And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses' feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying. And to set forth the valour of my own dear countrymen, I assured him, "that I had seen them blow up a hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship, and beheld the dead bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diversion of the spectators.” GT IV

This Casket India's glowing Gems unlocks,And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box.The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,Transform'd to Combs, the speckled and the white.

(I, 233 ff)

A critical but mild judgment—compare to Swift on a similar topic:

20

Grace & beauty of Pope’s lines point up the disturbing details the satirist sees

Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, IV, vi:

I assured him "that this whole globe of earth must be at least three times gone round before one of our better female Yahoos could get her breakfast, or a cup to put it in." He said "that must needs be a miserable country which cannot furnish food for its own inhabitants. But what he chiefly wondered at was, how such vast tracts of ground as I described should be wholly without fresh water, and the people put to the necessity of sending over the sea for drink." I replied "that England (the dear place of my nativity) was computed to produce three times the quantity of food more than its inhabitants are able to consume, as well as liquors extracted from grain, or pressed out of the fruit of certain trees, which made excellent drink, and the same proportion in every other convenience of life. But, in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of the females, we sent away the greatest part of our necessary things to other countries, whence, in return, we brought the materials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of necessity, that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, flattering, suborning, forswearing, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, star-gazing, poisoning, whoring, canting, libelling, freethinking, and the like occupations:" every one of which terms I was at much pains to make him understand.

21

Circling the globe for combs & cups

  Behold, four Kings in Majesty rever'd, 49 

With hoary Whiskers and a forky Beard;And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a Flow'r,Th' expressive Emblem of their softer Pow'r; [3.40]

Should the formality of kings and queens be compared to the formality of a card game?

  The skilful Nymph reviews her Force with Care;Let Spades be Trumps, she said, and Trumps they were. (45-6)

All heroism reduced to this: “Thus far both Armies to Belinda yield”(65) 22

Comedy of the Game: ombre

Oh thoughtless Mortals! ever blind to Fate,Too soon dejected, and too soon elate!Sudden these Honours shall be snatch'd away,And curs'd for ever this Victorious Day. (III, 101 ff)

   But when to Mischief Mortals bend their Will,How soon they find fit Instruments of Ill! (III, 125-6)

  What Time wou'd spare, from Steel receives its date,And Monuments, like Men, submit to Fate! (III, 171-2)

23

General moral Statement

24

First complete edition of what Samuel Johnson described as "the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of all Pope’s compositions". This edition was preceded only by the much abbreviated 2-canto version published in Miscellaneous Poems, 1712. With 6 engraved plates (including frontispiece). One plate closely cropped (image unaffected), extremely clean throughout. A superior copy.

From The Manhattan Rare Book Company. 1050 Second Ave. Gallery 50E

25

From Special Collections,University of Floridahttp://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/rarebook/catalog/pope/popeintr.htm

A quite remarkable site, well worth visiting.

  The Peer now spreads the glitt'ring Forfex   wide,

T'inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.

Ev'n then, before the fatal Engine clos'd,

A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd; [3.150]

Fate urg'd the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,

(But Airy Substance soon unites again)  

The meeting Points that sacred Hair dissever

From the fair Head, for ever and for ever! (III, 145 ff.)

26

Central event

27

His romantic dalliance with Arabella Fermor is satirised in Alexander Pope's Poem The Rape of the Lock.

http://www.ingatestonehall.com/about_family_tree.php

Wikipedia

He died of small pox at 24.

28

Sir George Brown, “Sir Plume”

“Sir Plume is the personification of empty coxcombry and conceit, and talks nothing but nonsense. Sir George Brown had sense enough to see that little honour would redound to him from being the prototype of such a character. He was so indignant as to threaten personal chastisement to the poet,which would certainly have completed his disgrace.”1853 Poetical Works of Pope.Thalestris is said to be Mrs.

Morley, a friend of Belinda’s

An occasional poem: therefore identities were known

But Sir Plume’s reaction shows the degree to which satire could act in the world.Sir Plume is a lot like Sparkish. What is the

difference in intensity of satire?

Pope’s ideal criticism involved naming no names, but his practice was often otherwise.Satire achieves immediacy in its treatment of

contemporary figures.29

Pope’s identification of people in his poems

Cave of Spleen (IV, 16)What the Sylphs have suggested now becomes clear:Pope’s epic “machinery” reveals the psychology of

women.Ill nature and AffectationStrange phantoms: delusions

  Unnumber'd Throngs on ev'ry side are seenOf Bodies chang'd to various Forms by Spleen.Here living Teapots stand, one Arm held out,One bent; the Handle this, and that the Spout: [4.50]

A Pipkin there like Homer's Tripod 71  walks;Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose Pie 72  talks;Men prove with Child, as pow'rful Fancy works,And Maids turn'd Bottels, call aloud for Corks.

30

Looking closely at Cantos IV and V

Thalestris is an Amazon—and as we know, represents a friend of Belinda’s. IV, 89 ff.

What kind of feminism do we see here? What would Astell think?

Belinda’s assessment followed by comic reduction (IV, 147 ff) “any Hairs but these”

The inherent problem of burlesque, parody, and mock forms

31

Thalestris

While thro’ the Press, enrag’d Thelestris flies . . (57)

An Amazon leading a battle

Modern references increasingly included

Beau & witling (Restoration wit comedy)

32

Epic battle

Compare with Astell’s essaySay, why are Beauties prais’d and honour’d most . . . (9)

Oh! If to dance all Night, and dress all DayCharm’d the Small-pox, or chas’d old Age away . . .19-20

What reasons do we have for taking Clarissa’s speech at face-value?

And why might readers be skeptical?What speech has the final “say”? 33

Clarissa’s speech

Pope creates an epic horizon throughout the poem but intensifies it in Canto V.In vain, Thalestris ... (3)

So when bold Homer makes the Gods engage . . .45

Now Jove suspends . . .71

Simultaneous intensification of epic and mock elements. “Not fierce Othello . . .”

Preparing for the lock’s elevation 34

Intensification of Epic