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07-08-2010, 03:03 PM #1
maqsood hasni maqsood hasni is offline
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Comparison and Contrast between ‘ The Rape of the Lock’ and Paradise Lost
Comparison and Contrast
between ‘ The Rape of the Lock’
and
Paradise Lost
(Book I, IX)
Once epics enjoyed a high status in the realm of literature. Poets wrote them with extra ordinary
skill and people read them with penetrating attention. A common man could afford long hours to
read or listen to the epic sung or narrated. With the passage of time, political ideas under went a
sea change, social trends were also metamorphosed with the revolutionary changes, people’s
bent towards literature also turned over a new leaf and epic was replaced by other genre of
literature like novel, short-story. The present climate is not suitable for the old tree of epic to
flourish, rather it is dwindling with the fastness of the wheel of society. In the following passages
an effort is made to present the comparison and contrast between two famous epics in the English
literature: The Rape of the Lock and the ‘Paradise Lost’ (Book I, IX).
The Paradise Lost by John Milton is a traditional epic where as the Rape of the Lock is a mock
epic.
An epic is a narrative poem in which the poet describes a series of adventures made by the
dignified hero. Language is sublime and often Goodness gets victory over Evil. Discussing the
vast scope of Paradise Lost, F.E. Hutchinson says: “It ranges over all time and space and even
beyond them both it depicts heaven and earth and chaos, the imagined utterances of super natural
beings, events before the emergence of man upon earth, the history of man from the creation and
by prophecy, to the end of time, and his eternal destiny.” Dr. Johnson remarks: “Milton
considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions are therefore learned.”
The mock epic can be defined as a poetic form written in the epic structure and its subject is
ridiculously trivial. It mainly aims at satirizing socially vulnerable points. The writer makes every
possible effort to make it charming so that those who are laughed at may not be annoyed. Pope
himself says about this genre of literature: “It is using a vast force to lift a feather.” The rape of
the lock is a mock-epic in the best sense of the term. Hazlitt has called the poem “The perfection
of the mock-epic.”
In the beginning of an epic, the poet makes an invocation to the Muse or the Holy Spirit to help
him write some thing praiseworthy and everlasting. He, with all his ability and store of thoughts
and vocabulary, cannot do so without that supernatural assistance. Following this tradition, and
keeping his religion in his mind, Milton entreats the Holy Spirit:
O spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright hart and pure,
Instruct me what in me is dark illumine,
What is low raise and support.
The poet also tells the purpose of his adventure:
I may assert eternal providence
And justify the ways of God to man.
Alexander Pope in his mock-epic The Rape of the Lock has followed the tradition of the
commencement and also the purpose:
Say what strange motive, Goddess; could compel
A well bred lord to assault a gentle belle?
I sing this verse to Caryll, Muse is due
This even Belinda may vouchsafe to view
The purpose of the poem is expressed thus:
Slight is the subject but not so the praise
If she inspire and he approve my lays.
An epic is specified with a great task; the hero and other main characters are involved in some
Herculean problem. Long journeys, fatal fights blood curdling harassment, wars, etc., work like
pillars to maintain the high canopy of the epic’s tent. In Paradise Lost, there is a grand battle
between the limitless forces of God, and those of Satan. Such a great war has never been fought in
the history of man. The great thunder that followed the rebel angels to the hell makes the reader
stunned. Then in book IX, there is the expulsion of man from heaven. The greatest tragic event in
the history of man.
In his first speech, Satan remarks about his battle:
(i) And hazard in the glorious enterprise,
Joinned with me once, now misery halh joined
His utmost power with adverse power opposed.
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven, and shook his throne.
The construction of a grand pandemonium is no boubt a great task:
………and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from the sky.
The grreat tragedy of man occurs in book IX when Eve eats the forbidden fruit:
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.
Wearing the glasses of magnification, when we cast a glance at ‘The Rape of the Lock’, we are
suddenly stunned to find the ‘great task’ of cutting the lock of hair unfairly of a fair damsel:
The meeting point the sacred hair dissever
From fair head, for ever, and for ever;
The war of sexes is presented in a beautiful way:
All side in parties and begin the attack;
Fans clap, silks rustle, and touhg whalebones crack;
Death spreads every where:
One died in metaphor, and one in song.
Trivial actions like this are happening :
She smiled to see the doughty hero slain,
But, at her smile, the Beau revived again.
Great characters are a requirement for great action. In Paradise Lost, Satan’s character has been
portrayed by Milton in a splendid way. His stature is suggested thus:
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood;
His shield and spear are brought before us like this
…………. His ponderous shield,
Hung on his shoulders like the Moon,………………..
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast
Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand.
He has a great sympathy for his followers and is grieved to see them in that perdition. He
encourages them like a brave leader and puts before them the plan of their life:
Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable
Doing or suffering.
To so aught good never will be our task.
Adam and Eve have the perfection of humanity; Adam’s strength of body and mind, and Eve’s
charms have been beautifully described by the poet. Thus the epic can boast of grand characters.
While in The Rape of Lock very timid characters have been created. The Baron is the mockery of
bravery. The fop makes an adventure to get a lock of hair of a girl. Before coming to the Hyde
Park, he bows before gods to heavenly powers to make bless him with the prize of the lock. This
scene is enough to laugh at a youngman like the Baron.
Then prostrate falls and begs with ardent eyes
Soon to obtain and long possess the prize:
Belinda behaves just like a delicate doll whose aim is only to attract others.
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind
Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind
The two characters are suitable for a mock-epic.
Sir Plume also behaves in a ridiculous way:
When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down,
Cloe stepped in, and killed him with a frown;
Clarissa and Thalestris are also coquetts Almost all the society has fallen into vices. Here the game
of chess has been presented as a war in the battle field. Thus the action in a mock-epic is trivial as
is required.
A very prominent traditional quality of an epic is the proper use of machinery. In the Paradise
Lost, very grand machinery has been employed. There are mighty angels like Gabriel, and fallen
engels like Satan, Beelzbub; they are further explained as gods of various regions where they
established their temples and large populations of human beings followed their evil teacings.
Moloch, Chemos, Baalim and Ashtareth, Astarte, Thammuz, Dagon, Osiris, Isis, Orus, Belial, etc.
make up the machinery of the epic. The major part is played by Satan himself. Almost all fallen
angels engage in contructing the great Pandemonium. Then Satan’s adventure to enter paradise,
the revolutions around the earth and then penertrating to a serpent makes the piece very attractive.
Similarly machinery has been employed in ‘The Rape of the Lock’. There is Ariel, the head of
all the spirits. Then there are four types of the spirits: salamanders, nymphs, gnomes, sylphs.
These spirits play an active part in the overall action of the mock-epic. There is also Spleen that
has a mood of her own and who spreads coquettery and Megrim in the world. Thus machinery in
both the epics works like soul in the body.
Riaz Hassan says:
“A living poem should have a body, a soul and a mind. The body would be its form, the soul its
inspiration, and the mind its message.”
By using machinery, both the poets have fulfilled the qualities of a living poem.