Show how Pope makes a balance between the grand and the trivial in The Rape of the Lock

Question: Show how Pope makes a balance between the grand and the trivial in The Rape of the Lock.

Or, In The Rape of the Lock, the theme is trivial but the treatment is grand. Discuss.

Or, How does Alexander Pope treat a trivial subject matter in a grand style in his The Rape of the Lock?

Answer: Epic poetry is written in a grand style. It is one of the rare characteristics of epic poem. The richness of the language, with all the free play of pomp and splendour, is the quality that distinguishes the epic style from the ordinary. Pope's "The Rape of the Lock” is a mock-epic. He uses the grand style to undermine the grand stature of epic poetry. Joseph Warton rightly interrogates in this respect - “If Virgil has merited such perpetual commendation for exalting his bees, by the majesty and magnificence of his diction, does not Pope deserve equal praises, for the pomp and lustre of his language, on so trivial a subject?” Pope employs the devices and methods of an epic to present a trivial theme of grand scale in this poem we know that the theme of an epic is serious and dignified, and the ludicrous has no place in it. However, Pope's "The Rape of the Lock” imitates the method of an epic to present a trivial and ludicrous theme.

The epic here is built round the 'rape' of the lock of a fashionable belle by a proud beau. The poet presents mock heroically the cutting off the lock of hair from a young lady's head as serious an affair as the rape of Helen or the rape of Lucrece. Obviously, the theme of the poem is trivial, but Pope turns this trivial matter into a glittering piece of poetry through his use of a grand style. It is because of this grand style that Pope renders new things familiar and familiar things new in the poem. The poem presents a marvelous blending of the old and the new, the familiar and unfamiliar and real and fanciful. Side by side with a lady's toilet in a London house, coffee and the game of cards the diminutive sylphs and the cave of Spleen are presented. The blending of the real and the unreal, the factual and the fanciful lends a unique charm to the poem.

As said above, Pope presents the trivial theme of the poem in a triumphantly epic style. The pomp and lustre of the language in which the poem is written is evident from the very opening lines of the poem-

"What dire offence from am'rouscauses springs.

What mighty contests rise from trivial things,"

The beginning of the poem is in the truly epic style, both in the use of pompous words and in the solemn march of Pope's verse, and the whole style is highly elevated. A like elevation is noticed in Canto-III after the raping of Belinda's lock. The lovely lock is ruthlessly raped by the haughty Baron, and the poet sings mightily in the fashion of an epic poet-

“What time would spare, from steel receives its date

And monuments, like men, submit to fate!

Steel could the labour or the gods destroy

And strike to dust th' imperial towers of Troy;"

The greater portion of the poem, as a matter of fact, contains highly elevated passages. The structural balance is the appropriate highly elevated passage. The structural balance and the appropriate application of a heroic style for the increased effect of elevation and solemnity mark Pope's poem all through. Such an effect of elevations is also found in the passage that comes before the raping of Belinda's lock -

“Oh thoughtless mortals ever blind to fate,

Too soon dejected, and too soon elate.

Sudden these honours shall be snatche'd away,

And curs’dfor ever this victorious day.”

A good heroic poem is not expected to maintain the same range of elevation all through. It must offer some relief to its readers from its rich and ornate language, and the poet need to take refuge in homely words and images. He is to descend sometime in plainer narrative and even some time to the familiar dialogue, which is found generally in a comedy. Pope's command over the epic style iś is unique, and there are occasions when he justly lowers the majestic state of his language.

The mock-heroic character of the poem is achieved through this occasional lowering of the style. The poet's purpose is to excite ridicule and to create the environment needed for his mock-epic. Thus, the lines which follow the description of the mischievous effect of coffee on the Baron, serve to bring out fully the mock-heroic character of Pope's words-

“Ah cease, rash youth! Desist ere 'tis too late.

Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate:

Changed to a bird, and sent to flit in air.”

Pope's epic style is comprehensive and carefully executed. His poem does not merely reproduce the epic method of heightening. The poet subtly adopts, too, the epic method for the purpose of ridicule.

In “The Rape of the Lock”, Pope employs the classical formulary of epic poetry with witty appropriateness to create a just environment for his heroic work. His carefully selected details well emphasize the artificiality of the society he is bantering, and a strongly satirical effect is produced in such mock-heroic expressions

"Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,

Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;"

The same sense of banter is continued and emphasized in such passages as—“Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux."

Pope has claimed the use of the pompous expression for low action as the perfection of the mock-epic. “The Rape of the Lock” certainly passes this test with the highest honour. He gives his trivial matter, the significant form and the happy colour of epic poetry. On the whole, Pope's poem has nothing serious, but it is invested with an assumed gravity and a dignified air. The poet's mock-serious objective elevates his little things to the epical heights, while the sublime is subjected to travesty.