The Rape of the Lock is Epitome of 18th century “Social Life”, discuss.

Ans. Pope has presented a true and faithful picture of the eighteenth century life in its manifold aspects in The Rape of the Lock. It is the real source of his strength. In no other poet do we find such a forceful and true reflection of the life of his age, as in Pope. Leslie Stephen observes, “Pope or his little to the name has been dispute; he had a power or weakness in which he has scarcely been rivalled. No writer reflected so clearly and completely the spirit of his own day”.

Eighteenth Century life of Lords and Ladies : Life in the eighteenth century was artificial. It was the age of clubs and coffee-houses. People cared more for outward alamour than for inherent virtues. Corruption pervaded the society. The spirit of self-sacrifice which is the salt of a nation’s life was extinct among public men in the age of Pope. The fashionable society or the aristocratic class was completely devoid of sincerity. The tone of gallantry which men showed while addressing ladies was in fact a mockery of chivalry. Similarly, it appeared from the behaviour and ways of ladies that their main aim was to attract and ensnare men.

Presentation of women of the upper classes: From the picture of women presented by one, Pope is apt to infer that “women are all frivolous beings whose one genuine interest is in love-making.” The fashionable ladies like Belinda used to get up very late in the day. They awoke from the dreams of love in an atmosphere of perfume. They’re wonderfully fond of lap-dogs. The toilet was a sacred task. Jewels, cosmetics, powders, rows of pins, perfumery and paints were magnificently displayed on the toilet table. They spent considerable time in toilet. Armed with all the charms, they appeared in society and drove in gilt coaches or in sedant chairs. They often visited beautiful and majestic places in the company of fashionable young men to break the monotony of theatres and balls. They were also fond of gambling and playing cards. They spent all their time in love-making and coquetry.

Presentation of fops and gallants: The young gallants of Pope’s time were also much interested in the frivolous and fashionable life. The spirit of chivalry was dead. The Baron rudely snips off a lock of hair of Belinda while an honourable man will resort to some other fair and dignified way. The odd number of his former trophies of love suggests that, perhaps, they too were stolen like Belinda’s lock. The young men were very punctilious about dress. They were “fops tailor-made men without any brains or higher ideals”.

A faithful picture of the artificial life of the time : He has exposed the foibles and frivolities of the eighteenth century society. He comes before us as the representative of his age and the poem may well be called an expression of the artificial life of the day, of its card-parties; toilets, lap-dogs, tea-drinking, snuff-taking and idle vanities. According to an eminent American critic, “In The Rape of the Lock Pope has caught and fixed forever the atmosphere of the age…No great English poem is at once so brilliant and so empty, so artistic and yet so void of the ideal on which all high art rests”.

A fine reflection of contemporary life and manners: “The fortunes and reputation of Pope”, says Lecky, “form as curious and important a page in English literary history as the fortunes of Aristotle in the history of European thought. No poet was ever more clearly the outcome and the representative of the-tendencies of his time. His path had been prepared by the French taste which came of England at the Restoration, turning the minds of men from the higher and wilder forms of imagination producing a contempt for everything that was archaic, unsymmetrical, and inartistic and making measure and refinement, and exact and highly polished are the supreme ideals of taste. Shakespeare was driven as a barbarian from the stage.

“Pope’s poetry, indeed, bears to the poetry of the seventeenth century much the same relation as a Greek temple to a Gothic cathedral, and the poet of his genius is very evident. He was essentially the poet of a town, the poet of a cultivated and artificial society. Though he wrote pastorals, few poets have had less genuine sense of natural beauty and less power of accurately describing it. Though much of his poetry consists of descriptions of character, he seldom contemplated human nature except as refined and tempered by civilization and his judgements of men show no real subtlety or depth.

Except Shakespeare, probably no English poet has left so many lines which have passed into the daily usage of his countrymen; and a rich and beautiful fancy, a noble sense of intellectual and moral beauty streams through his verse like the sunshine through a pellucid pane, in my own judgement the exquisitely delicate fancy of The Rape of the Lock, and the restrained and dignified pathos of the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, are among the choicest products of English poetry.

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