Swift and Pope

POEM ANALYSIS

Alexander Pope : The Rape of the Lock

Jonathan Swift : The Lady 's Dressing Room

The Rape of the Lock

In an attempt to arouse amusement over a true to life trivial incident Alexander Pope wrote this poem in mocking heroic verse form . The background story was of a great admirer of a lady stole a lock of her hair . The two families of the lady , Belinda , and the gentleman , The Baron , found themselves angry with each other over the incident

Instead of amiably taking to light what acts being

besotted to can display , the seemingly unforgiveable was indeed taken in heights of resentment . Thus the poem illustrated the thin line that can divide the significant and the insignificant in life - even the mundane and the profound , even the banal and the blasy

The poem was hoping to bring peace to the two families as they are supposedly enlightened through the humor it was trying to exact . What transpires in feelings of love and acts of courtship cannot be really be predictable and not all causes and effect can be judged . The incidence in The Rape of the Lock ' was meant to have been resolved with a simple dose of tolerance and understanding - and yet , it has not come to pass

The rape of the lock may well have been an incident in the period of circumspection--how thorough such circumspection was likely to be may be gathered from the correspondence of Caryll during 1710-11 when he was choosing a...