Analysis Of The Rape Of The Lock By John Milton

Often considered seventeenth-century England’s greatest literary epic, John Milton’s Paradise Lost abounds in elevated diction, striking imagery, and grand heroics. Ultimately presented in twelve books, this notable poem depicts an event of remarkable tragedy—man’s first disobedience and subsequent loss of Paradise—in a way that transcends even the most exceptionally composed narrative. While the epic style observed in Milton’s Paradise Lost deals with that of a grand happening—one that exacts a justifiably harrowing response—the satirically adapted style of the mock-epic takes an exceedingly vain and insignificant incident and presents it in the most exalted and imposing manner. An exemplary example of the English mock-epic is beheld in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. Also referred to as a mock-heroic, the narrative of this early-eighteenth-century poem revolves around the trivial affair of a lady’s lock of hair being cut—one that provokes the utmost irrational of reactions. Not only are the five cantos of Pope’s The Rape of the Lock widely regarded as an immensely successful mock-epic, but his superior ability to convey a highly exaggerated and …show more content…
Directly following the Baron’s removal of this beloved lock in Canto 4: “The meeting points the sacred hair dissever / From the fair head, forever and forever!” (IV.153-154), Belinda is witnessed as being filled with an imposing and radiant fury: “Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, / And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies” (IV.155-156). With both Adam’s and Belinda’s highly distressed reactions to the events of their respective poems—as well as the elevated use of language and imagery detected—a parallel state of grandness is placed on that of Milton’s epic and Pope’s