The Rape Of The Lockwhich Analysis

Alexander Pope was an eighteenth century British English poet who is best commended for the excellent craftsmanship that he demonstrates in the heroic couplet. The essential social satire that features his poetic disposition has earned him never ending literary appraisal. Pope’s “translation of Homer” seems to have achieved a perfection of form in the poem, The Rape of the Lockwhich is perhaps the best and most celebrated of his poetic successes. First published in 1712, the poem, The Rape of the Lockreappeared in 1714 as a revised version with five cantos. It is a mock-heroic poem which sarcastically details the subject of a struggle between two aristocratic families in Pope’s contemporary society. Intriguingly, the powerful satirical reasoning

It bears ample evidence to the fact that Pope is one of the most excellent embodiments of the kind of intelligence which is simply known as “wit”. The satirical reasoning and the sarcastic streak emerging from Pope 's poetic disposition render his works, particularly the poem under concern, much elegant and vigorous. An epic or a heroic poem is a long narrative poem which is intended to sing the praise of a hero by relating his story with a series of adventures in an impressive manner. A piece of epic is written in a highly elevated style in order to suit its theme and attain the objective of adoring the heroism of the figure who serves as the source of inspiration for the particular work. Two best known examples of epic poetry are The Odyssey and The Iliad by the classical literary artist, Homer. The mock-epic or the mock-heroic is a poetic form which is aimed at mocking the epic structure by treating a trivial subject in a pompous manner. In addition, a mock epic normally makes it part of its intention to burlesque the characteristics of the epic style such as the invocation to the Muse, formal statement of the theme, division into books or cantos and the employment of machinery. The action of an epic is made on a large scale and the length of an epic is very high. (Lall) The subject matter of a heroic poem is also intensely dramatic and splendid because it celebrates the marvelous moments of gallantry attributed to its hero who takes us into a world of adventurous wonders. But, on the contrary, the subject of a heroi-comical poem is found to be mean, trivial, and almost slight. Nevertheless, the manner in which a mock-epic is written resembles the epic style, and thus the subject is made to look ridiculous by placing it in a framework and atmosphere totally inappropriate to its nature and level of