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Essay On The Poem The Rape Of The Lock

976 Words4 Pages

Mock epic is a narrative poem which aims at mockery and amusement by using almost all the characteristic features of an epic but for a trivial or unimportant subject.
In the “The Rape of the Lock” there is an invocation to Muses, intention of subject, battles, supernatural machinery, and journey on water, underworld journey, long speeches, feasts (coffee house), Homeric similes and grand style but all for a simple family dispute instead of a national struggle. The grand action of a low subject produces comical laughter and makes the story more absurd. Instead of wonderful passions and great fights between heroes in which the immortals take part, The Rape of the Lock we see as a minor passionate quarrel assisted by the spirits of the air. The Rape of the Lock, on the other hand, gives us a picture of a stylish society. The essential figure in that picture is a beautiful society girl, and the other characters are a young man, a foolish dandy and a few mannered women. The subject matters in both of the epic poems are grand. Like the epic poems, the poem “The Rape of the Lock” opens with the intention of the subject matter and …show more content…

Belinda is the very goddess of beauty, and the shine of her eyes surpasses that of the sun, which peeped nervously through the white curtains in Belinda’s room and opened those eyes that must eclipse the day. In the poem “The Rape of the Lock” the beautiful Belinda is described preparing herself with combs and pins – with "Puffs, Powders, Patches, bibles, billet doux" on her dressing table – She "arms" herself at the end of Canto 1." This is nothing but humorous. The rituals sacrifices perform in the pre-dawn hours are another mock epic element of the poem, mimicking the epic tradition of sacrificing to the gods before an important battle or journey. The reality that he rejects all his other love tokens in these preparations reveals his untrustworthiness as a

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