English Literature

The eighteenth century is and age of psychological insight. Every writer as well as his work is being analyzed in psychological terms. Modern psychology has proved that it is the sex psychology which determined the superiority of a sex. Sex is the nucleus of human life and its all activities. It is not the product of conventions, rather, it is just a natural instinct, which is reduced to some discipline by accepted social convention, morals, laws, etc. Sex is at the root of all moral and physical health. So it may be disciplined, but if it is curbed and suppressed, it leads to drastic consequences. In fact, frustrations, depreciation, persecution, disparities coupled with economic problems result in dejection and in order to bring about catharsis, one may get depressed or find any easy escape and become immoral in the eyes of the world. The lock in "The Rape of the Lock" is a symbol of the female organ and the rape of the lock symbolizes the rape of Belinda by the hands of ...

Pope explains that "machinery" is a term invented by the critics to signify the part which deities, angles, or demons play in a poem. He goes on to say that the machinery in this poem is based on the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits in which the four elements are inhabited by sylphs, nymphs, gnomes and salamanders. The sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures. Pope tells us that beautiful women return, after their death, to the elements from which they were derived. Termagants or violent tempered women become salamanders or spirit of the fire. Women of gentle and pleasing disposition pass into nymphs or water-spirits. Prudish women become gnomes or earth spirits. Light-hearted coquettes are changed into sylphs or spirits of the air. The first and the foremost activity of the sylphs is the protection of fair and chaste ladies who reject the male sex. They guard and save the chastity of maidens and save them from falling victims to the "t...

An epic, according to Aristotle, is the tragedy of a conspicuous person, who is involved in adventurous events and meets a tragic fall on account of some error of judgment i.e. hamartia which throws him from prosperity into adversity,however, his death is not essential. So, the subject matter of an epic is grand and that's why it is written in bombastic language and heroic couplet. Its style, too, is grand. A mock-epic is a satire of an epic. It shows us that even a trivial subject can also be treated on epical scale. The subject of "The Rape of the Lock" is trivial � a love dispute between a lady ad a gentleman. Lord Byron proposes Belinda who rejects his proposal. Baron cuts one of her beautiful looks. This trivial theme has been given epical treatment as if it were some grave event of paramount importance. The style of the poet is mock-heroic. He employs bombastic and showy diction for thoughts and ideas which are not really grand � pompous expression for low action ...

Spleen was the Augustan name what Elizabethan described as melancholy. It is less of a disease than a fashionable affectation. Fashionable ladies, poets, and playwrights pretend to suffer from it so as to give an impression that he victims are serious thinkers of creative writers. Pope exalts Spleen to the level of Goddess and cave of Spleen to the level of underworld and personifies her as the Queen of underworld. This suits his scheme to mock the epic conventions systematically because the serious epics like "Illiad" and "Aenied" show heroes taking a voyage to the underworld. In travesty of this convention, however, Pope packs a lot of social criticism, especially the criticism of fashionable vanities and affectations of the fashionable women. Sylphs were in attendance to Belinda when she plays Omber. They hover around her when she sips coffee. They withdraw when Ariel sees "an earthly lover lurking at her heart". A gnome, called 'Umbriel' holds...

The rape of the lock is a brilliant and humorous satire on the aristocratic society of England, with its social scandals, follies, trivialities and vanities in general of fashionable men and women. Dryden said, �The true end of satire is the amendment of vice by correction,� and that is what Pope set out to do in his �Rape of the Lock.� By using the burlesque, mockery, and irony, Pope ridicules the deviation of his society. Satire in �The Rape of The Lock" can be called a social satire because it satirizes the society as a whole in ways still relevant to to-days world. Moreover it is not a satire against any individual, but against the follies and vanities of fashionable men and women in general. Through Belinda Pope satirizes the fashionable women of the time and through Baron, he satirizes the aristocratic gentlemen of the age. However, the reason for why Pope�s �The Rape of The Lock� can be called a social satire is given below: The poem is, in fact, a satire upon feminine fri...

As Shakespeare is the poet of man, Pope is a poet of society. �The Rape of the Lock� is a social document because it mirrors contemporary society and contains a social satire, too. Pope paints about England in 18th century. The whole panorama of �The Rape of the Lock� revolves around the false standard of 18th century. Pope satirizes the young girls and boys, aristocratic women and men, their free time activities, nature of husbands and wives, the professional judges and politicians of the day. Pope clearly depicts the absurdities and the frivolities of the fashionable circle of the 18th century England. The world of Belinda � the world of fashion is a trivial world. The whole life of Belinda is confined to sleeping, make-up, enjoyment and alluring the lords. There are no transcendental elements in her life. This life is marked by ill-nature, affection, mischievousness, coquetry, yielding and submissive nature, fierce and unruly nature, infidelity, cheapness, meanness, trivialities and...