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Alexander Pope's Portrayal Of Belinda And Her Society In 'the Rape Of The Lock'
- August 29, 2010, 8:17 am
In The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope (1688-1744) employs a mock-epic style to satirise the beau-monde (fashionable world, society of the elite) of eighteenth century England. The richness of the poem, however, reveals more than a straightforward satirical attack. Alongside the criticism we can detect Popes fascination with, and perhaps admiration for, Belinda and the society in which she moves. Pope himself was not part of the beau-monde. He knew the families on which the poem is based but his own parents, though probably comfortably off, were not so rich or of the class one would have to be in to move in Belinda's circle. He associated with learned men and poets, and there can have been little common ground between the company he kept at Will's Coffee House and those who frequented
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