Brunch Time Literature: Episode 004: Introduction to Pope' The Rape of the Lock"

Brunch Time Literature: Episode 004                                                                    KK Bonteh

CRTV Yaoundé                                                                                                    Monday 16/11/2015

BRUNCH TIME LITERATURE BY KK BONTEH

 Time: 10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Mondays & Fridays

The Rape of the Lock: Introduction

In A Nutshell

Picture this.

You're sitting there, having a perfectly lovely day, when someone you thought was your friend betrays you in the worst way possible.

Do they copy your homework? Well, no. Do they spread a vicious rumor about you around school? Nope, not that either. It's worse.

They cut off a lock of your hair.

Okay, so that situation has a bit of the ridiculous about it. But Alexander Pope is nothing if not a bit ridiculous. And he uses just such an occasion—someone cutting off a friend's lock of hair—to craft this long, funny, famous poem, The Rape of the Lock.

We know: nowadays the word "rape" usually describes a horrific situation at which laughing is strictly—and rightly—forbidden. But back in 1714, when Pope published The Rape of the Lock, the term "rape" had a broader definition. Sure, they used it as we do, but it could also refer to the act of seizing or taking anything by force (you can see where our more specific use of the word today comes from—and both meanings, as you'll also see when we dive into analysis, are active in this poem).

Two years earlier, at a very fancy party just outside of London, the young Lord Petre had snuck up behind a young lady, Belle Fermor, and snipped off a lock of her hair (literally seizing it by force) without her consent. That actually happened. Neither Belle nor her parents appreciated this assault on her hairstyle, especially since they had been considering Lord Petre as a potential husband for her.

Yeah, that marriage didn't exactly pan out. Instead, the two families fell out hard with each other. You could call it a feud, Capulet-Montague style.

After a while things got so bad between them that a mutual acquaintance asked the young poet Alexander Pope (who was also good friends with both families) to write a poem that might make the whole affair into something funny. The idea was to end the feud with laughter and good humor.

Pope was pretty young at this point—twenty-four years old—and at the very beginning of his career. Still, he was already getting a name for himself as one of the hottest young poets in London. Back in those days, before radio, television, and the Internet, poets were full-on celebrities. You could call them the rap stars of their culture, writing catchy political and social satire that everyone who knew how to read, did.

Poetry was the social media of its time: imagine Facebook in verse, or a rhyming Twitter feed. A poem might tell you everything about the extramarital affairs of the King of England, or the money troubles of his Prime Minister, or the bad clothing choices of his oldest son. Pope was ambitious for this kind of celebrity and eager to advance his career, so he took the request to write this poem about what happened between two personal friends as an opportunity to show off his education and his considerable talent with meter, rhyme, and allusion.

Pope wrote an initial version of the poem in 1712, telling the basic story of Belle and Lord Petre, and then made it twice as long two years later, turning it into a gentle satire on social pretension and vanity. With the expanded version, Pope succeeded in reuniting his friends and in achieving poetic fame: The Rape of the Lock was a smash hit throughout his lifetime and became one of his most famous and best-loved poems. It was also his most light-hearted (coincidence?). As he got older and more involved in politics, his outlook (and his poetic satires) got a lot more bitter and made him many enemies.

The Rape of the Lock describes what happened just before (the heroine waking up and getting dressed for the party), during (the card game at the party that she plays, which distracts her) and just after (the heroine and her friends completely freaking out over her unwanted new do) Lord Petre snips off Belle Fermor's hair, but in the most elaborate language and fanciful style possible. You might even say that the poem is more about its own style and language than it is about the actual event it describes.

Pope takes the trivial crisis of a spoiled society girl losing a piece of her hair to a rich boy's prank, and makes it larger than life by adding in supernatural beings (the Sylphs, fairy-like critters who oversee and comment on the action), and by comparing it to major Classical epics like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid. Belle's obsession with her own looks; Lord Petre's obsession with Belle's hair; Pope's obsession with showing off his mad poetry skills, imagination, and intellect: put it all together, and you'll find the Rape of the Lock is a seriously obsessive poem. 

Why Should I Care?

Don't be put off by the poem's length and its incredibly formal language: stay patient, resist the temptation to go back to that email full of cute guilty-pet pictures your aunt just sent you, read the poem slowly (with our help of course), and prepare yourself for a big payoff. Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock delivers on many levels: social, poetic, political, and aesthetic. All that is to say: this poem is awesome.

How often in your own daily life do people (your friends, your brothers or sisters, your parents, your teachers) seem to blow up over completely trivial things? How many times have you gone off the deep end over something silly and then felt kind of dumb about it later? Have you ever wished you could just sit everyone down and have them put things into perspective? Or that someone could do that with you sometimes?

The Rape of the Lock looks at tempests in teapots from a uniquely double perspective. On the one hand, the poem recognizes that for some people, an event so slight as the loss of a piece of hair can be a Big Freaking Deal. And that's understandable if you look at it from their point of view. But then the poem also shows how important it is to keep perspective and a sense of humor about all of those little things that can really (and sometimes literally) get us down.

This social attitude spills over into the poem's politics as well. Think about all of the times our representatives in Congress bog themselves down in arguments about trivial points while the larger issues they should worry about (children going hungry, schools going downhill, the rising cost of living) get ignored?

What The Rape of the Lock finally shows you is how important it is to look at the bigger picture. Yep, that's right: don't sweat the small stuff. At the same time, though, the poem is busting at the seams with small stuff: perfect rhymes, detailed allusions, gorgeous imagery. What gives?

Here's a deep thought for you: Pope uses the small stuff (a beautifully written poem) to make his readers get over their own small stuff (a petty fight over a lock of hair). The takeaway point? Even small stuff has its place. But you have to keep it in its place. Got it?

Dedication Summary

                                                    To Mrs. Arabella Fermor

Madam,
It will be in vain to deny that I have some Regard for this Piece, since I Dedicate it to You. Yet You may bear me Witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good Sense and Good Humour enough, to laugh not only at their Sex's little unguarded Follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the Air of a Secret, it soon found its Way into the World. An imperfect copy having been offer'd to a Bookseller, You had the Good-Nature for my Sake to consent to the Publication of one more correct: This I was forc'd to before I had executed half my Design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to compleat it. The Machinery, Madam, is a Term invented by the Criticks, to signify that Part which the Deities, Angels, or Daemons, are made to act in a Poem: For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many modern Ladies; Let an Action be never so trivial in it self, they always make it appear of the utmost Importance. These Machines I determin'd to raise on a very new and odd Foundation, the Rosicrucian Doctrine of Spirits.
I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard Words before a Lady; but 'tis so much the Concern of a Poet to have his Works understood, and particularly by your Sex, that You must give me leave to explain two or three difficult Terms.
The Rosicrucians are a People I must bring You acquainted with. The best Account I know of them is in a French Book call'd Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its Title and Size is so like a Novel, that many of the Fair Sex have read it for one by Mistake. According to these Gentlemen, the four Elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or Daemons of Earth, delight in Mischief; but the Sylphs, whose Habitation is in the Air, are the best-condition'd Creatures imaginable. For they say, any Mortals may enjoy the most intimate Familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a Condition very easie to all true Adepts, an inviolate Preservation of Chastity. As to the following Canto's, all the Passages of them are as Fabulous, as the Vision at the Beginning, or the Transformation at the End; (Except the Loss of your Hair, which I always mention with Reverence.) The Human Persons are as Fictitious as the Airy ones; and the Character of Belinda, as it is now manag'd, resembles You in nothing but in Beauty. If this Poem had as many graces as there are in Your Person, or in Your Mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro' the World half so Uncensured as You have done. But let its Fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this Occasion of assuring You that I am, with the truest Esteem,
Madam,
Your Most Obedient
Humble Servant.
A. Pope.

• If you ever wind up reading a lot of 18th-century British poetry, you'll notice that many of the longer poems feature a letter of dedication, usually to a famous, powerful, rich, or important person (ideally, for the poet, a person who has all four of those things going on at once) at the very beginning of the work. Poets would often do this as a way to associate their work with that powerful or famous person, kind of like the way Nike named a style of basketball shoe the Air Jordan. Call it a form of literary endorsement.
• The Rape of the Lock is no exception. While Arabella Fermor isn't famous at this point or politically powerful, here Pope has to work his way through a potentially complicated situation: he needs to make sure that Arabella is okay with him taking her story public. And even if she's not okay with it, he needs to make sure his readers know that he at least tried to make her okay with it. He's going to publish it either way.
• You might notice that the letter addresses Arabella as "Mrs."; she's not actually married at this point, though. People in the 18th century addressed all respectable women as "Mrs", which was shorthand for "Mistress."
• First, Pope explains to her his reasons for publishing the original poem (as opposed to just writing it out and giving it to all of the parties concerned): according to him, he was forced to take it public, as copies were leaking out and it would have been published anyway, so why not make sure the official version is the one that gets out? (Don't be fooled by Pope's disclaimer here, though. He knows this poem is top-notch and wants to take public credit for it).
• Pope then explains some of the more obscure bells and whistles he's added to the poem's original story. That's the "Machinery" he describes in the second and third paragraphs.
• Notice here his two-sided, "compliment" (NOT) to women readers in general, and Arabella in particular, when he says "I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard Words before a Lady; but 'tis so much the Concern of a Poet to have his Works understood, and particularly by your Sex, that You must give me leave to explain two or three difficult Terms."
• If this sounds condescending to you, you're right. It is. Pope may be gallant and polite here, but like most 18th-century men of the educated class, he had a sadly low opinion of women's intellect and abilities. We're still two hundred and twenty-six years away from women getting the vote, and just over two hundred and fifty years away from Title IX, folks.
• "Machinery," as Pope next explains to Arabella, is a fancy word for the supernatural elements in an epic poem. For Homer and Virgil, these would be the old Greek gods who meddled in all of the battlefield action; for Pope, it's the Sylphs and Gnomes he describes here. The Rosicrucians were a medieval secret society that practiced alchemy and dabbled in Middle Eastern philosophy. 
• That book Pope mentions with the French title? It's Le Comte de Gabalis ("the Count Gabalis"), a screwball comedy written in the 1670s about occult beliefs and mystical spirits, with some history and philosophy thrown in. The Rosicrucians loved it. 
• The final two paragraphs of this opening letter dedicate the poem to Arabella, and are also a fancy version of the "all characters in this work are fictitious" disclaimer you'll often find at the beginning or end of a movie. 
• You might also notice that a lot of the words in the letter (and throughout the entire poem) appear to be randomly capitalized or italicized, or misspelled. While sometimes the capitalization or italicization is meaningful (as when Pope personifies a noun, or wants to emphasize a word), for the most part it is random. 
• Here's the deal: in the early 18th century, the English language wasn't yet fully standardized. There were no official, comprehensive dictionaries or guides to correct or proper grammar and spelling. (We know, you might now be wishing you lived back then, right?) At this point too few people knew how to read and write to even bother. But over the next hundred years, literacy exploded, and as more folk became literate, language became more regulated and codified.

Canto I Summary

Lines 1-12

WHAT dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things,
I sing—This Verse to Caryll, Muse! is due;
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.

Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,
Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In Tasks so bold, can Little Men engage,
and in soft Bosoms dwells such Mighty Rage?

·                     Do you ever say a quick prayer to some higher power before trying to do something really difficult, like nail a foul shot in a basketball game or take a hairy test in Algebra class? Ancient Greek and Roman poets like Homer (in the Iliad) and Virgil (in the Aeneid), and British heavyweights like John Milton (in Paradise Lost) would do the same thing as they began their epics, dedicating their poetic efforts to (and asking for inspirational help from) the Muses, the Greek gods, or (in Milton's case) God himself. 

·                     In the first six lines of Canto I, Pope is doing just that, but in a very tongue-in-cheek way. Instead of a divinity, he dedicates the poem to his and Arabella Fermor's friend John Caryll, who originally asked him to write it, and to "Belinda" (i.e., Arabella, the woman the poem is ostensibly about). This is called an invocation. 

·                     Here Pope sets the stage for the action that's coming, and gives us a bit of a mystery to follow as we read. Why (as he asks the "Goddess"—probably a Muse) would a Lord assault a young Lady? Why would a young Lady get angry at a Lord? Why would a society man do such a thing? And are society women really capable of getting into a rage about it? 

·                     Also here at the very beginning of his long poem, with this mock-dedication, Pope is setting his readers up for a theme that will come back over and over again: the Rape of the Lock as what literature historians call a mock epic: a poem that takes as its model far more serious epics like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Paradise Lost, using high-flying poetic language and grand metaphors just like they do. But mock epics are about something trivial and small, like a young society woman losing a piece of her hair, instead of about a great war between the Trojans and Greeks, or the founding of the Roman Empire, or the fall of Adam and Eve.

·                     Pope isn't just making fun of grand epics, though: he's also paying an affectionate tribute to them, and demonstrating at the same time how well he knows epic poetry. Every educated person of Pope's day knew epic poetry really well, better even than you know the lyrics to the latest Katy Perry single. That's because the early 18th century loved Classical Greek and Roman culture. Historians call it the age of neoclassicism.

·                     This makes The Rape of the Lock especially fun for people who have read the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Aeneid. Have you ever listened to Weird Al Yankovic doing his "Polka Face" spoof of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," or his "Party in the CIA" version of Miley Cyrus's "Party in the U.S.A"? They're really funny and clever all at the same time, especially if you know the original song really well. The Rape of the Lock is a lot like that. This is only the first of many mock-epic moments in the poem; we'll point them out to you as we go through it. 

·                     Following the mock-epic theme, then, the first twelve lines go about juxtaposing the grand and the trivial. Notice how the first line contains "dire Offence" (i.e., a horrific crime) and "am'rous Causes" (that's "amorous," meaning connected to love and romance, but Pope has shortened the word with an apostrophe to make it fit the meter of the line.)? 

·                     And notice how the second line contains "mighty Contests" and "trivial Things"? How about in line eleven, which has "Tasks so bold" and "Little Men," or line twelve, with "soft Bosoms" and "mighty Rage"? Yep, that's juxtaposition again. The technique is often used (as it is here) as a tool of satire. 

·                     By placing the high and mighty next to the trivial, Pope can actually make the high and mighty seem trivial, and then get his readers to question why they thought it was high and mighty in the first place. 

·                     Another cool poetic trick that Pope uses often comes in the last two lines of this section: "In Tasks so Bold, can little Men engage,/ And in soft Bosoms dwell such mighty Rage?" (11-12). If you look at both lines together, you'll see that the first half of the first line ("Tasks so Bold") goes with the second half of the second line ("mighty Rage"), and the second half of the first line ("little Men") goes well with the first half of the second ("soft Bosoms"). 

·                     This poetic device is called a chiasmus, from the Greek word for "cross." Look for more instances of it throughout the poem.

·                     What do you think Pope is up to by using it here?

·                     Have you noticed the poem's form by now? The entire thing, like these first twelve lines, is written in iambic pentameter and rhymed couplets (another term for these is heroic couplets). 

·                     See the "Form and Meter" section for a more detailed description of the heroic couplet, but take a sec to notice here (and all the way through the poem) how the side-by-side pairing of the couplets makes it easy for Pope to do the kind of juxtaposition we were looking at above. 

·                     Pope was really, really, really good at heroic couplets, by the way. And we mean good. For a short description of just how good, see our guide to a snippet from one of his later poems, An Essay on Criticism.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ladies and gentlemen, that was Brunch Time Literature, presented to you by KK Bonteh. If you did enjoy it or have any suggestions to make why not write to us at Brunch Time Literature, CRTV Broadcasting House Yaoundé, or visit us at MTC Lanhuage Institute Biyem-Assi Stade, Yaounde. We accept voice calls and SMS us through telephone number 677.53.42.47; and emails at www.kkbonteh@yahoo.com. For details, visit our website at www.gicmtc.com. Until our next Episode, bye-bye! And stay connected to CRTV.

Brunch Time Literature: Episode 03                                                                     K.K. Bonteh

CRTV                                                                                                               Friday, 13/11/2015

Broadcasting House, Yaoundé                                                        Time: 10:30 – 10:45 a.m.

Hamlet's First Soliloquy and Analysis

1.     What is a soliloquy?

A long, usually serious speech that a character in a play makes to an audience and that reveals the character’s thoughts; the act of talking to oneself; the dramatic monologue that represents a series of unspoken reflections.

2.     Which soliloquy would you like to focus on today?

The very first: Hamlet's Soliloquy 1: O, that this too too solid flesh would melt (1.2) Annotations

HAMLET- Original Text

Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on ’t, ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this.

But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king, that was to this

Hyperion to a satyr. So loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly.—Heaven and earth,

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on, and yet, within a month—

Let me not think on ’t. Frailty, thy name is woman!—

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father’s body,

Like Niobe, all tears. Why she, even she—

O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourned longer!—married with my uncle,

My father’s brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules. Within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,

She married. O most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good,

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

3. Away from the Shakespearean jargon, how would you render that diction in modern English?

HAMLET – Modern Version

Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me. Damn it! It’s like a garden that no one’s taking care of, and that’s growing wild. Only nasty weeds grow in it now. I can’t believe it’s come to this. My father’s only been dead for two months—no, not even two. Such an excellent king, as superior to my uncle as a god is to a beast, and so loving toward my mother that he kept the wind from blowing too hard on her face.

Oh God, do I have to remember that? She would hang on to him, and the more she was with him the more she wanted to be with him; she couldn’t get enough of him. Yet even so, within a month of my father’s death (I don’t even want to think about it. Oh women! You are so weak!), even before she had broken in the shoes she wore to his funeral, crying like crazy—even an animal would have mourned its mate longer than she did!—there she was marrying my uncle, my father’s brother, who’s about as much like my father as I’m like Hercules. Less than a month after my father’s death, even before the tears on her cheeks had dried, she remarried. Oh, so quick to jump into a bed of incest! That’s not good, and no good can come of it either. But my heart must break in silence, since I can’t mention my feelings aloud.

4. What is the primary function of the soliloquy within the function of the play?

 Commentary
Hamlet's passionate first soliloquy provides a striking contrast to the controlled and artificial dialogue that he must exchange with Claudius and his court. The primary function of the soliloquy is to reveal to the audience Hamlet's profound melancholia and the reasons for his despair. In a disjointed outpouring of disgust, anger, sorrow, and grief, Hamlet explains that, without exception, everything in his world is either futile or contemptible. His speech is saturated with suggestions of rot and corruption, as seen in the basic usage of words like "rank" (L.138) and "gross" (L.138), and in the metaphor associating the world with "an unweeded garden" (L.137). The nature of his grief is soon exposed, as we learn that his mother, Gertrude, has married her own brother-in-law only two months after the death of Hamlet's father. Hamlet is tormented by images of Gertrude's tender affections toward his father, believing that her display of love was a pretense to satisfy her own lust and greed. Hamlet even negates Gertrude's initial grief over the loss of her husband. She cried "unrighteous tears" (L.156) because the sorrow she expressed was insincere, belied by her reprehensible conduct.
      Notice Shakespeare's use of juxtaposition and contrast to enhance Hamlet's feelings of contempt, disgust, and inadequacy. The counterpointing between things divine and things earthly or profane is apparent from the opening sentence of the soliloquy, in which Hamlet expresses his anguished sense of being captive to his flesh. His desire for dissolution into dew, an impermanent substance, is expressive of his desire to escape from the corporality into a process suggestive of spiritual release. Immediately juxtaposed to this notion, and standing in contrast to "flesh", is his reference to the "Everlasting", the spiritual term for the duality. Paradoxically, in his aversion from the flesh, his body must seem to him to possess a state of permanence, closer to something everlasting than to the ephemeral nature of the dew he yearns to become" 
       Another striking juxtaposition in the soliloquy is Hamlet's use of Hyperion and a satyr to denote his father and his uncle, respectively. Hyperion, the Titan god of light, represents honour, virtue, and regality -- all traits belonging to Hamlet's father, the true King of Denmark. Satyrs, the half-human and half-beast companions of the wine-god Dionysus, represent lasciviousness and overindulgence, much like Hamlet's usurping uncle Claudius. It is no wonder, then, that Hamlet develops a disgust for, not only Claudius the man, but all of the behaviours and excesses associated with Claudius. In other passages from the play we see that Hamlet has begun to find revelry of any kind unacceptable, and, in particular, he loathes drinking and sensual dancing.
        A final important contrast in the soliloquy is seen in Hamlet's self-depreciating comment "but no more like my father/Than I to Hercules" (L.154-55). Although Hamlet's comparison of himself to the courageous Greek hero could be devoid of any deeper significance, it is more likely that the remark indicates Hamlet's developing lack of self worth -- a theme that will become the focus of his next soliloquy.

 [Hamlet's Soliloquy 2: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (2.2)]

5.                  One last question; contact: students, teachers of Literature in English, and fans of Literature in general may want to contact you and share their views, worries and concerns about this topic and others; any contact?

………………………………………………………

CONCLUSION

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with this note that we draw the curtains for our today’s programme in which you have been listening to the voice of KK Bonteh.

Are you a student, a teacher, a researcher, or simply a fan of literature? Then Brunch Time Literature, is for you. We would like to share your deepest feelings. Contact us through the following address: Brunch Time Literature, CRTV Yaoundé, or SMS us through telephone number 242.14.48.48 or 677.53.42.47.

You can as well email us at kkbonteh@gmail.com or visit MTC Language Institute at www.gicmtc.com .

Until our next Episode, bye-bye! And stay connected to CRTV.


Learn English at MTC Language Institute

Learn English at MTC Language Institute, the educational arm of the Mirror Theatre Company, Inc. and you’ll be learning with one of the world’s English experts. We’ve been teaching English for more than 16 years and have helped more than 10 thousand people in Cameroon and different countries improve their English skills and build their confidence.   You can learn English by taking face-to-face lessons in our teaching centres or at home via our online courses and learning tools. And we can demonstrate your progress by providing you with internationally recognised proficiency tests.   Explore our unrivalled range of courses and support to meet your exact learning needs. Contact us at www.gicmtc.com or call 242144848 or 222310383.