Do you know this poem "The Rape of Lock"?

[truth_forest]

I don't understand about it.
what's it talk about?
what's the main idea and theme?

sorry, I feel sleepy when I read it...

[Riesa]

This might help. (http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/rapeofthelock/analysis.html)

[Coraleen212]

Ahh, the joys of 'The Rape of the Lock' which I am currently studying. Basically, the background to it is like this:

Pope knew a couple of friends called Arabella Furmor and Lord Petri (love that name). He, in a moment of daring audacity decided to cut of a lock of her hair, thus ruining her honour etc etc...
A mutal friend came to Pope and asked him to write a poem to help the two former friends make up, and hence he wrote this poem called 'Rape of the Lock' in order to accentuate the really-not-all-that-serious facts about what happened.
The poem is written in a heroi-comical style where Pope basically blows everything up out of proportion in order to show both these people how silly they're being about it. It focuses on Belinda, who represents Arabella and compares her to a being of immense beauty and impact. He also compares the a lot of instances (like a simple card game) as being like a battle. I particularly like the way 'sylphs' are used like Belinda's personal bodyguards, to protect her and help with things such as sorting her hair all and saving her honour =O
Hope this helps ^^ It's also a good idea to look up a synopsis for the general plot :nod:

[Jackson Richardson]

I studied the poem at school before I'd ever heard of feminism. I have an awful feeling that it could be dismissed as irredeemably sexist.

Nevertheless, it is one of my favourite poems, with wonderful lines.

And on her breast a silver cross she wore
That Jews might kiss, or infidels adore.

Yet graceful ease and sweetness void of pride
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide.

(Of Bellinda's dressing table):
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. (A beautiful line to speak.)

I've just read John Dryden's translation of Virgil's The Aeniad, which is the classic source of the poetic language and conventions that Pope is sending up.

[OrphanPip]

Pope's writing isn't particularly sexist, and the text hasn't really garnered very many feminist readings because it doesn't seem particularly concerned with qualifying gender. Most of the academic interest in the poem circles around the form of the mock-epic and Pope's biographical connection to the events described.

Also, besides Dryden's (who also wrote a mock-epic, "Mac Fleknoe") translations of epics, Pope also produced serious translations of Homer in the heroic couplet. While Dryden and Pope are the most famous users of the heroic couplet, they didn't actually create it.

I do agree that Pope created a masterpiece with The Rape of the Lock.

[Jackson Richardson]

I’m just a ruggerlad who might well get the feminist angle very wrong. But I could imagine the following argument:

A man invades a woman’s personal space and assaults her, in so far as he cuts off some of her hair. A friend tries to patch it up with her, by making out it’s all been a joke. As part of the joke he calls it a rape, so show she’s over-reacting. I’d have imagined some women arguing that it is rape after all.

To add sexist fuel to the fire, the friend implies she was asking for it in any case, as in the couplet

O hadst thou, cruel, been content to seize
Hairs out of sight, or any hairs but these.
(That would get a snigger in the changing rooms.)

I don’t think that argument covers matters or the complexity of the poem, but I’ll think about it for a bit.

[JBI]

The poem is very ironic, making political conclusions hard. Everything can be excused with the frame of irony.

[OrphanPip]

Well rape at the time meant theft by force, rather than specifically sexual assault. The obvious allusion here is to the "rape" of Helen of Troy. The theft of a lock of hair being paralleled to the theft of a wife; the social conflict between upper class families paralleled to the military conflicts of the Trojan War. It is true that he means it to comically send up the overreaction, but it's more playful than crude in context.

[JCamilo]

There is also the intimacy related to "hair" back then, it is a bit like a underpants thief. It is a bit of chastity signal keeping the hair untouched, so it is not and it is a sexual attack. Obviously, Pope irony is genial and the modern feminists reading are probally also few because Pope's fame seems to place him just as a translator of classics.

[Jackson Richardson]

the modern feminists reading are probally also few because Pope's fame seems to place him just as a translator of classics.

Gosh. Haven't they read his poetry? The Essay on the Character of Women in particular?

If there was ever a work about the construction of femininity, The Rape of the Lock is it.

I'll think about this over the weekend and come back to it.