The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems
In this line in the poem Thalestris insinuates that if Belinda submits
tamely to the rape of the lock, her position as a toast will be
forfeited.
'113-116'
Thalestris supposes that the baron will have the lock set in a ring
under a bit of crystal. Old-fashioned hair-rings of this kind are still
to be seen.
'117 Hyde-park Circus':
the Ring of Canto I, l. 44. Grass was not likely to grow there so long
as it remained the fashionable place to drive.
'118 in the sound of Bow':
within hearing of the bells of the church of St. Mary le Bow in
Cheapside. So far back as Ben Jonson's time (Eastward Ho, I, ii, 36) it
was the mark of the unfashionable middle-class citizen to live in this
quarter. A "wit" in Queen Anne's day would have scorned to lodge there.
'121 Sir Plume':
this was Sir George Brown, brother of Mrs. Morley (Thalestris). He was
not unnaturally offended at the picture drawn of him in this poem. Pope
told a friend many years later that
"nobody was angry but Sir George Brown, and he was a good deal so, and
for a long time. He could not bear that Sir Plume should talk nothing
but nonsense."
'124 a clouded cane':
a cane of polished wood with cloudlike markings. In the 'Tatler', Mr.
Bickerstaff sits in judgment on canes, and takes away a cane, "curiously
clouded, with a transparent amber head, and a blue ribband to hang upon
his wrist," from a young gentleman as a piece of idle foppery. There are
some amusing remarks on the "conduct" of canes in the same essay.
'133'
The baron's oath is a parody of the oath of Achilles ('Iliad', I, 234).
'142'
The breaking of the bottle of sorrows, etc., is the cause of Belinda's
change of mood from wrath as in l. 93 to tears, 143-144.
'155 the gilt Chariot':
the painted and gilded coach in which ladies took the air in London.
'156 Bohea:'
tea, the name comes from a range of hills in China where a certain kind
of tea was grown.
'162 the patch-box:'
the box which held the little bits of black sticking-plaster with which
ladies used to adorn their faces. According to Addison ('Spectator', No.
81), ladies even went so far in this fad as to patch on one side of the
face or the other, according to their politics.
CANTO V
'5 the Trojan:'
AEneas, who left Carthage in spite of the wrath of Dido and the
entreaties of her sister Anna.
'7-36'
Pope inserted these lines in a late revision in 1717, in order, as he
said, to open more clearly the moral of the poem. The speech of Clarissa
is a parody of a famous speech by Sarpedon in the 'Iliad', XII, 310-328.
'14'
At this time the gentlemen always sat in the side boxes of the theater;
the ladies in the front boxes.
'20'
As vaccination had not yet been introduced, small-pox was at this time a
terribly dreaded scourge.
'23'
In the 'Spectator', No. 23, there is inserted a mock advertisement,
professing to teach the whole art of ogling, the church ogle, the
playhouse ogle, a flying ogle fit for the ring, etc.
'24'
Painting the face was a common practice of the belles of this time. 'The
Spectator', No. 41, contains a bitter attack on the painted ladies whom
it calls the "Picts."
'37 virago:'
a fierce, masculine woman, here used for Thalestris.
'45'
In the 'Iliad' (Bk. XX) the gods are represented as taking sides for the
Greeks and Trojans and fighting among themselves. Pallas opposes Ares,
or Mars; and Hermes, Latona.
'48 Olympus:'
the hill on whose summit the gods were supposed to dwell, often used for
heaven itself.
'50 Neptune:'
used here for the sea over which Neptune presided.
'53 a sconce's height:'
the top of an ornamental bracket for holding candles.
'61'
Explain the metaphor in this line.
'64'
The quotation is from a song in an opera called 'Camilla'.
'65'
The Maeander is a river in Asia Minor. Ovid ('Heroides', VII, 1-2)
represents the swan as singing his death-song on its banks.
'68'
Chloe: a fanciful name. No real person is meant.
'71'
The figure of Jove weighing the issue of a battle in his scales is found
in the 'Iliad', VIII, 69-73. Milton imitated it in 'Paradise Lost', IX,
996-1004. When the men's wits mounted it showed that they were lighter,
less important, than the lady's hair, and so were destined to lose the
battle.
'89-96'
This pedigree of Belinda's bodkin is a parody of Homer's account of
Agamemnon's scepter ('Iliad', II, 100-108).
'105-106'
In Shakespeare's play Othello fiercely demands to see a handkerchief
which he has given his wife, and takes her inability to show it to him
as a proof of her infidelity.
'113'
the lunar sphere: it was an old superstition that everything lost on
earth went to the moon. An Italian poet, Ariosto, uses this notion in a
poem with which Pope was familiar ('Orlando Furioso', Canto XXXIV), and
from which he borrowed some of his ideas for the cave of Spleen.
'122'
Why does Pope include "tomes of casuistry" in this collection?
'125'
There was a legend that Romulus never died, but had been caught up to
the skies in a storm. Proculus, a Roman senator, said that Romulus had
descended from heaven and spoken to him and then ascended again (Livy,
I, 16).
'129' Berenice's Locks:
Berenice was an Egyptian queen who dedicated a lock of hair for her
husband's safe return from war. It was said afterward to have become a
constellation, and a Greek poet wrote some verses on the marvel.
'132'
Why were the Sylphs pleased?
'133' the Mall:
the upper side of St. James's park in London, a favorite place at this
time for promenades.
'136' Rosamonda's lake:
a pond near one of the gates of St. James's park, a favorite rendezvous
for lovers.
'137' Partridge:
an almanac maker of Pope's day who was given to prophesying future
events. Shortly before this poem was written Swift had issued a mock
almanac foretelling that Partridge would die on a certain day. When that
day came Swift got out a pamphlet giving a full account of Partridge's
death. In spite of the poor man's protests, Swift and his friends kept
on insisting that he was dead. He was still living, however, when Pope
wrote this poem. Why does Pope call him "th' egregious wizard"?
'138' Galileo's eyes:
the telescope, first used by the Italian astronomer Galileo.
'140' Louis XIV of France,
the great enemy of England at this time
'--Rome:'
here used to denote the Roman Catholic Church.
'143 the shining sphere:'
an allusion to the old notion that all the stars were set in one sphere
in the sky. Belinda's lost lock, now a star, is said to add a new light
to this sphere.
147 What are the "fair suns"?
* * * * *
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM
INTRODUCTION
The 'Essay on Criticism' was the first really important work that Pope
gave to the world. He had been composing verses from early boyhood, and
had actually published a set of 'Pastorals' which had attracted some
attention. He was already known to the literary set of London
coffeehouses as a young man of keen wit and high promise, but to the
reading public at large he was as yet an unknown quantity. With the
appearance of the 'Essay', Pope not only sprang at once into the full
light of publicity, but seized almost undisputed that position as the
first of living English poets which he was to retain unchallenged till
his death. Even after his death down to the Romantic revival, in fact,
Pope's supremacy was an article of critical faith, and this supremacy
was in no small measure founded upon the acknowledged merits of the
'Essay on Criticism.' Johnson, the last great representative of Pope's
own school of thought in matters literary, held that the poet had never
excelled this early work and gave it as his deliberate opinion that if
Pope had written nothing else, the 'Essay' would have placed him among
the first poets and the first critics. The 'Essay on Criticism' is
hardly an epoch-making poem, but it certainly "made" Alexander Pope.
The poem was published anonymously in the spring of 1711, when Pope was
twenty-three years old. There has been considerable dispute as to the
date of its composition; but the facts seem to be that it was begun in
1707 and finished in 1709 when Pope had it printed, not for publication,
but for purposes of further correction. As it stands, therefore, it
represents a work planned at the close of Pope's precocious youth, and
executed and polished in the first flush of his manhood. And it is quite
fair to say that considering the age of its author the 'Essay on
Criticism' is one of the most remarkable works in English.
Not that there is anything particularly original about the 'Essay.' On
the contrary, it is one of the most conventional of all Pope's works. It
has nothing of the lively fancy of 'The Rape of the Lock', little or
nothing of the personal note which stamps the later satires and epistles
as so peculiarly Pope's own. Apart from its brilliant epigrammatic
expression the 'Essay on Criticism' might have been written by almost
any man of letters in Queen Anne's day who took the trouble to think a
little about the laws of literature, and who thought about those laws
strictly in accordance with the accepted conventions of his time. Pope
is not in the least to be blamed for this lack of originality. Profound
original criticism is perhaps the very last thing to be expected of a
brilliant boy, and Pope was little more when he planned this work. But
boy as he was, he had already accomplished an immense amount of
desultory reading, not only in literature proper, but in literary
criticism as well. He told Spence in later years that in his youth he
had gone through all the best critics, naming especially Quintilian,
Rapin, and Bossu. A mere cursory reading of the Essay shows that he had
also studied Horace, Vida, and Boileau. Before he began to write he had,
so he told Spence, "digested all the matter of the poem into prose." In
other words, then, the 'Essay on Criticism' is at once the result of
Pope's early studies, the embodiment of the received literary doctrines
of his age, and, as a consecutive study of his poems shows, the
programme in accordance with which, making due allowance for certain
exceptions and inconsistencies, he evolved the main body of his work.
It would, however, be a mistake to treat, as did Pope's first editor,
the 'Essay on Criticism' as a methodical, elaborate, and systematic
treatise. Pope, indeed, was flattered to have a scholar of such
recognized authority as Warburton to interpret his works, and permitted
him to print a commentary upon the 'Essay', which is quite as long and
infinitely duller than the original. But the true nature of the poem is
indicated by its title. It is not an 'Art of Poetry' such as Boileau
composed, but an 'Essay'. And by the word "essay," Pope meant exactly
what Bacon did,--a tentative sketch, a series of detached thoughts upon
a subject, not a complete study or a methodical treatise. All that we
know of Pope's method of study, habit of thought, and practice of
composition goes to support this opinion. He read widely but
desultorily; thought swiftly and brilliantly, but illogically and
inconsistently; and composed in minute sections, on the backs of letters
and scraps of waste paper, fragments which he afterward united, rather
than blended, to make a complete poem, a mosaic, rather than a picture.
Yet the 'Essay' is by no means the "collection of independent maxims
tied together by the printer, but having no natural order," which De
Quincey pronounced it to be. It falls naturally into three parts. The
first deals with the rules derived by classic critics from the practice