Use of the Mock-epic Style in The Rape of the Lock Essay -- Rape Of Th

Use of the Mock-epic Style in The Rape of the Lock The dominate of the Barons rape is in exactly the same high words as it would be if he were Hector. In The Rape of the Lock, Pope uses the mock-epic style to satirise the seriousness with which a trivial misdemeanour (the theft of a a couple of(prenominal) strands of hair) and the ways of gender polarised society can be blown beyond all sense of proportion. Thus the male mentality, through the Baron, is portrayed as miss depth or personality beyond that required to achieve its ends men objectify and devise strategems (4,120) to conquer their female obsessions they are victors (4,162) who self-importantly congratulate themselves as meriting wreaths of triumph (4,161) when they have seized what they desire. The Baron claims that the glorious prize is his in perpetuity, whilst many conditions which will never be fulfilled (while fish in streams, or birds violate in air 4,163) remain unfulfilled. In this satirising of the epic m ould such trivial occurrences are substituted in place of truly fantastic possibilities (mighty cities falling, for instance) for the purpose of move the locks severing into a more realistic perspective this is made even more explicit in the following canto (4,8 no-one ever felt such rage, resentment, and despair / as thou, sad virgin for thy ravished hair meaning that perhaps Belinda over-reacts, in Popes opinion, just ever-so slightly.) He also then reinforces his satire with a broadening of humour, and a stab in the direction of then-popular culture specifically, Atalantis (4,165) was no great enduring writing but a cheap, scandalous work of fiction, notorious for its thinly concealed allusions to coeval scandals, pe... ...rder of life.) Obviously the ultimate aim of the poem is to mitigate the severity of the liberty taken in the theft of the lock (as seen in the minds of those involved in the familial dispute.) Mock epic assists Pope in achieving this without being seen to trivialise the assaulted feelings of the victim the high language and drama of his work accords to the act of the locks severing a grossly inflated significance, which retains enough of its epic origins not to be viewed as derisive sarcasm. As a satirist Pope is therefore presenting for the appraisal of his readership the notion that the red of the lock does not deserve the intensity of ill-feeling which has resulted from it. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Norton Anthology of English Literature 6th Edition, Volume 1, 1993 A Choice Of Popes Verse, edited by Peter Porter, Faber & Faber, 1971