The World, Surprisingly, Does Not Revolve Around You

            This week I really had to dig deep for something to focus my blog on. True, Mr. John Pope packed ‘Rape of the Lock’ full of plenty of goodies for us to unpack, but frankly my muse is elsewhere. However, I was rather interested in our conversation that got started during our last class meeting on how this poem could be seen as John Pope’s commentary on the frivolity (and excessive drama) of the upper class. I think one of the most obvious tools that Pope uses to drive this point home (and illuminate it so beautifully) is his consistent use of the epic conventions. In Pope’s poem he uses images of gods, epic battles, mystical creatures, and many, for lack of a better term, ‘epic’ happenings and people to portray such ordinary and mundane instances.

            In canto 3, stanza 2, we see  advent’rous knights, matadors, four kings (in majesty rever’d), and even fair queens. All the while Belinda is thirsting for fame. Peasants and royalty are engaging in battle, this is wonderfully epic… except for the minor detail that this epic battle is just a card game. In stanza 5, ideas of trade get the same epic treatment. “The berries crackle, and the mill turns round;/ on shining altars of Japan they raise… from silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,”. I know some people find coffee in the morning not only wonderful, but more importantly, a key ingredient to creating a well-shaped human being in our modern world, but this is pushing it a bit. Coffee is an epic thing in the upper class of Pope’s world; right up there with Achilles and Aphrodite.

           In this epic world, women even help arm their knights to better assist their knights on their gallant quest… of courting. And if, down the lane, that valiant knight becomes her husband, he will be just as important as her lap dog or even the blessed china! “When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;/ or when rich china vessels fall’n from high,” (158-159). What an honor. At the very least, Pope is most definitely pointing out that, at the very least, the upper class has their priorities rather skewed. The average and ordinary have become epic, and people that you’re supposed to care about are equated to your precious dog or an inanimate object.

         

         I had the opportunity to get to see Rent here on campus this week. Trust me, this is leading somewhere. This was the first time I had seen it, and there was one song that caught my attention, and made me think of ‘Rape of the Lock’, especially in the mindset that people can (and often do) over-dramatize everything in their lives. “Without you/ the ground thaws/ the rain falls/ the grass grows/ without you/ the seeds root/ the flowers bloom/ the children play/ the stars gleam/ the poets dream/ the eagles fly/ without you the earth turns/ the sun burns/ but I die without you”. Life goes on. Hair grows back. People forget. I promise. Now get over yourself, gain some perspective, and suck it up.