Alexander Pope was a devout Roman Catholic and had certain beliefs and standards that he believed everyone should follow. His two most famous and well regarded poems are “The Rape of the Lock” and “Eloisa to Abelard”. “The Rape of the Lock” is about a lord who cuts a woman’s hair because he likes it so much. “Eloisa to Abelard” is about a love between Eloisa and Pierre Abelard. There is turmoil and fallacious acts done in this poem. Alexander Pope, a devoted catholic, wrote many poems to influence society, two of which are named “The Rape of the Lock” and “Eloisa to Abelard”, the themes involved are satire and unrequited love.
Alexander Pope was born on May twenty-first of the year sixteen eighty-eight. He then died fifty-six years later on May thirtieth of the year seventeen seventy-four. He was born into a Roman Catholic family. They were the exiles in their time. He had to teach himself how to write and read in Latin and Greek. John Crawford once said: “Like Horace on his Sabine farm, Pope continued to pay close attention to the pastoral setting here. Horace became the major influence in Pope’s writing” (John W. Crawford). Some even thought that “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope was basically the best poem ever written. You can see such by Ezra Pound when she states that ““The Rape of the Lock” is Pope’s most brilliant achievement in his early work. Its sophisticated humor and virtuoso technique are unsurpassed” (Ezra Pound). “Eloisa to Abelard” “is certainly Pope’s greatest human poem and probably the greatest short love poem in our language” (G. Wilson Knight). He got Plotts disease, a form of spinal tuberculosis. He got it from drinking infected milk. It stunted his height growth at a measly 4’ 6”.Having this dise...
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Works Cited
Pound, Ezra. Critical Survey of Poetry. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2003. Print.
“The Rape of the Lock.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith and Elizabeth Thomason. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 201-226. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Marlowe, Jean G. “The Rape Of The Lock.” Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-4. Literary Reference Center. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
“An Essay On Man.” Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
Szwec, Jonathan J. “Satire in 18th Century British Society: Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and Jonathan Swift’s A Modern Proposal.” Student Pulse 3.06 (2011).
Crawford, John W. “Alexander Pope.” Magill’S Survey Of World Literature, Revised Edition (2009): 1-8. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. "The Hurt Locker." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Twelfth ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013. 942. Print.
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To begin, in The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope uses satire to invoke a capricious, melancholy mood to illustrate the absurdity of fighting over the cutting of one's hair. Hidden inside this poem is a crafty criticism of the society that helps create the crisis over the stolen lock. A Society in which appearances ere more important to a person’s sense of identity, and treats the insignificant with utmost importance.
Pope, Alexander. "The Rape of the Lock". The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 6th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 1993.
Effectively ushering change in society or pointing out faults that have existed and gone unnoticed can be a daunting task for any social commentator. Often, blandly protesting grievances or concerns can fall upon deaf ears and change can be slow or non-existent. However, Jonathan Swift in his pamphlet A Modest Proposal, uses clever, targeted, and ironic criticism to bring the social state of Ireland to the attention of indolent aristocrats. He accomplishes such criticism through satire, specifically Juvenalian satire. Swift’s A Modest Proposal stands as an example of the type of satire that plays upon the audience’s emotion by creating anger concerning the indifference of the voice created. He complements such criticism with sophisticated, clever language which may be mistaken for the more docile Horatian satire. Yet, this urbane voice, coupled with irony and the substance of the proposals accentuates Swift’s motive to use anger as a force for action. Through his absurd/humorous proposals, stinging irony, and use of voice, Swift effectively portrays A Modest Proposal as a Juvenalian satire designed to stir emotions concerning the social state of Ireland.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
Alexander was an 18th century poet, who befriended many other poets as collaborated with them during his lifetime. His most well known piece of work was The Rape of the Lock. It is a satire poem that pokes fun of a woman who is not as innocent as suspected. When a lock of her hair gets cut off, she acts as though she has been stabbed. Clearly this is an amusing poem, that Alexander Pope had fun writing. However, in Letter to a Young Poet, Virginia Woolf explains the importance of having fun when you write. “But it is of the utmost importance that readers should be amused, writers acquiesce…There is no harm in it, so long as you take it as a joke…You have a touch of Chaucer in you” (Woolf). She was a big fan of Chaucer, who goes down in history as one of the best satirical writer. Mort importantly, this shows that she appreciates the amusing tone that satire creates. The Rape of the Lock is considered a very humorous piece that Virginia Woolf would have approved
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
In 'The Rape of the Lock' Alexander Pope (1688-1744) employs a mock-epic style to satirise the 'beau-monde' (fashionable world, society of the elite) of eighteenth century England. The richness of the poem, however, reveals more than a straightforward satirical attack. Alongside the criticism we can detect Pope's fascination with, and perhaps admiration for, Belinda and the society in which she moves. Pope himself was not part of the 'beau-monde'. He knew the families on which the poem is based but his own parents, though probably comfortably off, were not so rich or of the class one would have to be in to move in Belinda's circle. He associated with learned men and poets, and there can have been little common ground between the company he kept at Will's Coffee House and those who frequented Hampton Court.
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own” (Swift). Such beholders, as Jonathan Swift astutely emphasizes, are intended, through guidance of satiric narrative, to recognize social or political plights. In some satires, as in Swift’s own A Modest Proposal, the use of absurd, blatant exaggeration is intended to capture an indolent audience’s attention regarding the social state of the poor. Yet even in such a direct satire, there exists another layer of meaning. In regards to A Modest Proposal, the interchange between the voice of the proposer and Swift’s voice introduces another medium of criticism, as well as the opportunity for readers to reflect on how well they may fit the proposer’s persona. In such as case, the satire exists on multiple levels of meaning—not only offering conclusions about moral problems, but also allowing the audience to an interpretation of their place among the criticism.
Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is a satirical poem that features a theme of gender roles. Throughout the poem, Pope uses his protagonist Belinda, to poke fun at the superficial nature of aristocratic women. He focuses on the ritual of womanhood and approaches it like a trivial matter, and her reaction to the offence is hysterical. Through this portrayal, he reveals that the Baron has a childish quality in his need for revenge for Belinda’s stab at his ego. The speaker’s view does come across as misogynistic, but the woman is trying to stand her ground in a society dominated by men. Taking into consideration that a male wrote the poem, during the 18th century, when woman had a particular place in society, and men often trivialized their concerns. Pope alludes to the idea that most wars are indeed over very trivial matters. The conflicts between men and women are exposed during Pope’s exploration of this “trivial war.” The narrative of Belinda and the Baron in The Rape of the Lock reveals the main underlying theme as the power struggle between the genders.
There are three main issues that Pope talks about in his long poem "An Essay on Man." First, the poet evokes a timeless vision of humanity in which the universe is connected to a great chain that extends from God to the tiniest form of life. Secondly, Pope discusses God's plan in which evil must exist for the sake of the greater good, a paradox not fully understandable by human reason. Thirdly, the poem accuses human beings of being proud and impious. Pope feels that man claims more insight into the nature of existence then he possesses.
"The Rape of the Lock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt et