Speech of Clarissa When Belinda bewails her lot and curses herself for having come to the Hampton Court despite all the 'omens' , the grave Clarissa , in a neat little speech exhorts her to moderation and good sense. She points out that all feminine vanities and foibles are in efficacious against de…

Significance of Cave of Spleen When after the cutting of the lock of hair, the Baron exults over his great achievement and Belinda gives way to rage, resentment and despair, Ariel withdraws and Umbriel, a mischievous and trickstering gnome takes charge of her. In consonance with an epic convention, the poet…

The episode of the game of Ombre that occurs in Canto III of the poem, The rape of the Lock is an after-thought on the part of the poem. It did not occur in the original version of the poem, which was too slight and thin, containing writing a mock-heroic on the trivial thing (the cutting of the lock of a fash…

Pope has presented Belinda as a complex character. He has presented her in different roles and under different shades, some are satirical other ironical but all entertaining. The character of Belinda has created much controversy since the publication of the poem. Some critics consider her treatment fair while o…

In his dedicatory letter to Miss Arabella Fermore, Pope writes “The machinery, Madam is a term invented by the critic to signify that part which the Deities, Angels and Demons are made to act in a poem”. From the ancient epics like The Iliad , The Odyssey , The Aeneid , The Paradise Lost , The Ramayana and The…

Alexander Pope as a Great Satirist Alexander Pope was a full package of contradictions  – sensitive, aggressive, proud, vindictive, lovable, loyal. He was a great satirist and moralist. He ‘stooped to truth and moralized his song ’. He used poetry as a great instrument of moral improvement and believed that …

Text The Rape of the Lock: Canto I By Alexander Pope Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos; Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. (Martial, Epigrams 12.84) What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things, I sing—This verse to Ca…