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Rape of the Lock, 1712 (2 canto)1714 (5 canto) (Gender (Cave of spleen…
Rape of the Lock, 1712 (2 canto)1714 (5 canto)
Context
Pope's life
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He was Catholic - legally discriminated against, regarded as a threat to the state
- lived in Windsor forest, closest to London that was legally allowed
- 1701 act of settlement, monarch had to be conforming Anglican. Still no Catholic monarch allowed now!
Real story an attempt to console 2 Catholics who had planned to marry, so it's supporting Catholicism (even if marriage didn't happen)
Had Potts disease, spinal tb, deformity.
'this long disease, my life
Has been argued that this gave him an ambivalent gender position: was very well educated, but couldn't partake in physical masculine activities, and was short and frail.
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Literary career (like Virgil's)
- Pastoral
- Georgics - business, farm, money, responsibility
- Epic. Quasi and mock epic (Dunciad). Apparently Pope didn't think the world he lived in could support an epic.
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The Scriblerus club
- Pope and Swift at the centre
- Wrote satirically, on abuses of learning
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Genre
Mock Epic
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Draws on tropes of epic:
- invocation of muse
- descriptions of armour/clothing
- list of armies
- battles/conflict between heroes
- supernatural intervention
- apotheosis of major characters
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Often has a morally serious purpose, eg Pope thought his world was idiotic
Contradiction between triviality and seriousness, eg 1-10
Everyone is flawed, they're kinda all anti-heroes
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There's immense detail, diversions etc, eg the amount of time/number of lines between the lock being cut and Belinda's screams.
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Pope got rich off of translating the Iliad and Odyssey. He did try to write epics, but burned them
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Gender
Belinda is weak and vain. HOWEVER she needs to be, that's the only way she can make put herself in a safe and comfortable position in life in the society she's in.
'beware of all, but most beware of man'
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Magical beings
- all come from different kinds of women
- Coquette: woman that leads men on
- though technically, angels have no gender
Pets seen as frivolous, unecessary, lapdogs like a replacement husband, same love attached.
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Canto 1, toilet scene: femininity held to blame for exploitation of the world's riches? Image of a female dressing means mercantile capitalism in 18th century. Laura Brown ideas.
The lock:
- Sympathy, but shot through with mockery and misogyny.
- Celebrating or satirising women? Often hard to tell the difference.
A lot less expansion on the Baron's stupidity than Belinda's flaws, eg in toilet
Women would give their fiances their hair, so the rape of the lock would carry more meaning then.
Triviality
Extended on first version, so obvs a lot of thought went into it (toilet scene and card game added)
I think overall it's not that trivial if we're assuming that coffee house culture was prevalent and important cause it probably would have been widely discussed
HOWEVER it could have been a lot less trivial, like the Dunciad, if he'd really wanted to critique society at that point. Far-fetched, fun...
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Battles
Really looks at intricacies of social interactions, maybe it's highlighting the importance we place on things as small as looks, maybe even highlighting the power of them, as well as/instead of mocking.
Pride
'to that her eyes she rears' - she isn't described as living with anyone, having any genuine or familial relationships, the maid is hardly even mentioned.
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Wished she'd never been to Hampton court (never been attacked or never in that society in the first place?)
Her hair is her whole pride, basically.
Vanity has never 'charmed the smallpox, or chased old age away'
Fate/human nature
Sylphs
- are vain and imperfect too, they used to be women.
- teach arrogance and vanity, but also 'guard purity'.
'they shift the moving toyshop of their heart (toyshop = women as empty, their very hearts are superficial?)
- 'the sylphs contrive it all'
- 'guard with arms divine the British throne'
- link to religion/PL: failed sylphs might 'plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie'
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he notes specifically 'female errors', more difficult to find male ones.
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Love overcomes apparent fate: sylph 'found his power expired' after there's an 'earthly lover lurking at her heart'
Emotion
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What could 'compel/ A well-bred lord t'assault a gentle belle?' - gossipy tone maybe superficial, maybe linked to coffee house culture?
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Over-dramatic: 'not louder shrieks to pitying heaven cast/ When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last'
Cave of spleen
- 2 maids: ill-nature and affectation.
- Queen 'rule the sex to fifty from fifteen' - misogyny, womb seen as the seat of spleen, womb apparently runs our whole bodies! Yes !
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Massively exaggerated, but humorous: 'killed him with a frown'