Rape Of The Lock Flashcards
Who is the protagonist in Rape of the Lock?
Belinda
What year was the Union of Scotland and England?
1707
What impact did the union of 1707 between Scotland and England have?
Changed and questioned cultural identity
Eg. Culture becomes a big theme in Rape of the Lock
What effect does Pope’s Tory affiliations have upon his poem?
There was an emergence of Tory poetry that was sceptical about trade and commerce
Quote from Rape of the Lock that shows the constant entertainment available in London.
Sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake
The emerging public sphere was centred around what place?
The coffee house
What implication did the new commercial society have upon literature?
Literature was to be consumed: it was mass produced (cheap print culture), and talked about before being thrown away.
Value was questioned
Quote from Pope about the value of writing
And while self love each jealous writer rules /
Contending wits become the sport of fools
Quote from Pope’s An Essay on Criticism
And while self love the jealous writer rules / contending wits become the sport of fools
In what ways does Rape of the Lock mimic the epic form?
Invokes the Muse
Divided in cantos,
Shows the divine (Sylphs) alongside the human
In what ways is it clear Rape of the Lock is a MOCK epic?
Bathos: high brought low
Epic battles > card games and comic fights (Like Gods they fight)
Turns high society into a spectacle
In what ways can the reader be considered complicit in Rape of the Lock?
Enjoying and consuming the spectacle of high society = a consumer
Watching Belinda sleep and dress = reader is guilty.
Quote:
Coffee…
Coffee (which makes the politician wise / and see through all things with his half shut eyes)
Quote:
Here thou…
Here thou, great Anna! Whom the three realms obey /
Dost sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea.
How does this begin:
… Dost sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea.
Here thou, great Anna! Whom the three realms obey
Quote about the British queen?
One speaks the glory of the British Queen / and one describes a charming Indian screen
Quote:
and one describes a charming Indian screen…
A third interprets motions, looks and eyes /
At every word a reputation dies
Quote about gossip in Rape of the Lock
A third interprets motions, looks and eyes /
At every word, a reputation dies
Quote about frivolity in Rape of the Lock.
The moving toyshop of their heart
What quote shows the ridiculing of the poet himself?
And while self love each jealous writer rules, / contending wits become the sport of fools
Name for the term that describes the high brought low?
Bathos
Name for the term in which one verb is applied to two different things?
Zeugma
‘Does sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea’ is an example of what literary device?
Zeugma
Who is the queen described in RotL?
Queen Anne
Who was Protestant, raised in France
Here thou, great Anna! whom the three realms obey / does sometimes council take and sometimes tea’
What is this immediately followed by?
Reference to Heroes and nymphs
And ‘pleasures of the court’
What war finished the same year as The Rape of the Lock was published?
The war of the Spanish Succession.
Lots of tensions with France and Spain
To whom was Rape of the Lock dedicated? (The same as who is was biographically based on)
Arabella Fermor
What’s the significance of the biographical reading?
Belinda = Arabella Fermor
As she is turned into a spectacle, real people are also turned into a spectacle.
Although, ‘intended only to divert a few young ladies’ who have good humour to laugh at it and themselves.
Example of the epistolary genre within Rape of the Lock?
Paratextually there’s a letter to Arabella Fermor, dedicating the poem to her and establishing her as the reader.
(Sense that the real reader is intruding on privacy?)
What quote from Pope’s paratextual letter shows that Rape of the Lock was not originally intended for mass readership or consumption within popular culture?
It was ‘communicated with the air of a secret’ but ‘soon found its way into the world’.
What quote shows Belinda’s hyperbolic reaction to having her hair stolen?
There she collects the force of female lungs / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues
What line shows the way the baron seeks to get Belinda’s hair?
He saw, he wished and to the prize aspired.
There she collects the…
There she collects the full force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues
He saw, he wished …
and to the prize aspired
It was ‘communicated with the air of secret’ but …
Soon found its way into the world.
