Milton Vs Pope Essay, Research Paper
A Crime of Fate
In Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve commit the first wickedness, and from this point on, all other wickednesss are mere transcripts of this. Alexander Pope uses this to his benefit when he depicts the offense in The Rape of the Lock. By touching to Milton s work, Pope is able to comically mention to the film editing of a lock of hair as a tragic and heroic event. In making this, he paradoxically assumes that the offense is non one of personal mistake, but one fated to go on by God, merely as in Paradise Lost.
What dire offense from amative causes springs, / What mighty competitions rise from fiddling things, ( Pope, ll. 1-2 ) . These first lines of The Rape of the Lock instantly try to do visible radiation of the full state of affairs. The reader has yet to larn what the desperate offense is, but already likens it to the Adam and Eve s fiddling error, eating from the tree of cognition, which forced them out of Paradise. It will take a farther reading of the verse form to larn that the offense is merely the film editing of a lock of hair, and non a monumental autumn from God s graces.
Pope goes on to present the inquiries, Say what unusual motivation, Goddess! Could compel/a well-mannered Lord to assail a soft Belle? / O say what stanger cause, yet unexplored, /could make a soft Belle reject a Lord? ( Pope, ll. 7-10 ) . This is an allusion to Adam s rejection of Eve in Paradise Lost when he laments, Out of my sight, thou snake! and to Eve s offense against God ( Milton, Bk. Ten, l. 867 ) . The motivations of Sir Plume s actions are now seen as similar to that of Adam and E
ve s and it sets up the offense against Clarissa as one that could non be avoided.
While Clarissa seems to be visited in her slumber by her guardian angel, it is an obvious mention to Eve s visit from Satan in Paradise Lost, Book V. The angel, whom we can presume is evil, Tells Clarissa she is the Fairest of persons while Satan addresses Eve as Nature s desire ( Pope, l. 27 ; Milton, l. 45 ) . Both adult females are instructed in their pride, and can non assist but experience better than others. Clarissa must Hear and believe! thy ain importance know, ( Pope, l. 35 ) .
Satan Tells Eve that feeding of the fruit will do her non to the Earth confined, / but sometimes in the air, as we ; ( Milton, Bk. V, ll. 78-79 ) . In the same mode, the angel tells Clarissa, The light flirts in Sylphs aloft fix, / and athletics and waver in the Fieldss of air ( Pope, ll. 65-66 ) . Clarissa must believe that she should chat up and flash her beauty, merely as Eve believes she must eat the fruit, and it is merely normal that Sir Plume, like Adam, would envy must envy her similitude to heaven.
While a face-value reading of The Rape of the Lock would do it look merely a humourous narrative, Pope goes above and beyond this. The allusions to John Milton s Paradise Lost turn out it to be a really cute piece. The reader can non put incrimination on Sir Plume, for like Adam, he was a victim of beauty and love. At the same clip, we can non look towards Clarissa because she was merely moving the manner her beauty would coerce her to. This was a offense non meant to rupture two households apart, but paradoxically, a offense of destiny.
