Rape Of The Lock

Question 1

Who is the protagonist in Rape of the Lock?

Answer 1

Belinda

Question 2

What year was the Union of Scotland and England?

Answer 2

1707

Question 3

What impact did the union of 1707 between Scotland and England have?

Answer 3

Changed and questioned cultural identity

Eg. Culture becomes a big theme in Rape of the Lock

Question 4

What effect does Pope’s Tory affiliations have upon his poem?

Answer 4

There was an emergence of Tory poetry that was sceptical about trade and commerce

Question 5

Quote from Rape of the Lock that shows the constant entertainment available in London.

Answer 5

Sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake

Question 6

The emerging public sphere was centred around what place?

Answer 6

The coffee house

Question 7

What implication did the new commercial society have upon literature?

Answer 7

Literature was to be consumed: it was mass produced (cheap print culture), and talked about before being thrown away.

Value was questioned

Question 8

Quote from Pope about the value of writing

Answer 8

And while self love each jealous writer rules /

Contending wits become the sport of fools

Question 9

Quote from Pope’s An Essay on Criticism

Answer 9

And while self love the jealous writer rules / contending wits become the sport of fools

Question 10

In what ways does Rape of the Lock mimic the epic form?

Answer 10

Invokes the Muse
Divided in cantos,
Shows the divine (Sylphs) alongside the human

Question 11

In what ways is it clear Rape of the Lock is a MOCK epic?

Answer 11

Bathos: high brought low
Epic battles > card games and comic fights (Like Gods they fight)

Turns high society into a spectacle

Question 12

In what ways can the reader be considered complicit in Rape of the Lock?

Answer 12

Enjoying and consuming the spectacle of high society = a consumer

Watching Belinda sleep and dress = reader is guilty.

Question 13

Quote:

Coffee…

Answer 13

Coffee (which makes the politician wise / and see through all things with his half shut eyes)

Question 14

Quote:

Here thou…

Answer 14

Here thou, great Anna! Whom the three realms obey /

Dost sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea.

Question 15

How does this begin:

… Dost sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea.

Answer 15

Here thou, great Anna! Whom the three realms obey

Question 16

Quote about the British queen?

Answer 16

One speaks the glory of the British Queen / and one describes a charming Indian screen

Question 17

Quote:

and one describes a charming Indian screen…

Answer 17

A third interprets motions, looks and eyes /

At every word a reputation dies

Question 18

Quote about gossip in Rape of the Lock

Answer 18

A third interprets motions, looks and eyes /

At every word, a reputation dies

Question 19

Quote about frivolity in Rape of the Lock.

Answer 19

The moving toyshop of their heart

Question 20

What quote shows the ridiculing of the poet himself?

Answer 20

And while self love each jealous writer rules, / contending wits become the sport of fools

Question 21

Name for the term that describes the high brought low?

Answer 21

Bathos

Question 22

Name for the term in which one verb is applied to two different things?

Answer 22

Zeugma

Question 23

‘Does sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea’ is an example of what literary device?

Answer 23

Zeugma

Question 24

Who is the queen described in RotL?

Answer 24

Queen Anne

Who was Protestant, raised in France

Question 25

Here thou, great Anna! whom the three realms obey / does sometimes council take and sometimes tea’

What is this immediately followed by?

Answer 25

Reference to Heroes and nymphs

And ‘pleasures of the court’

Question 26

What war finished the same year as The Rape of the Lock was published?

Answer 26

The war of the Spanish Succession.

Lots of tensions with France and Spain

Question 27

To whom was Rape of the Lock dedicated? (The same as who is was biographically based on)

Answer 27

Arabella Fermor

Question 28

What’s the significance of the biographical reading?

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Example of the epistolary genre within Rape of the Lock?

Answer 29

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?)

Question 30

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?

Answer 30

It was ‘communicated with the air of a secret’ but ‘soon found its way into the world’.

Question 31

What quote shows Belinda’s hyperbolic reaction to having her hair stolen?

Answer 31

There she collects the force of female lungs / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues

Question 32

What line shows the way the baron seeks to get Belinda’s hair?

Answer 32

He saw, he wished and to the prize aspired.

Question 33

There she collects the…

Answer 33

There she collects the full force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues

Question 34

He saw, he wished …

Answer 34

and to the prize aspired

Question 35

It was ‘communicated with the air of secret’ but …

Answer 35

Soon found its way into the world.