BELINDA’S WORLD OF TRIVIALITY IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: A MICROCOSM OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND AND THE IRONIC JUXTAPOSITION OF HER STORY WITH THE CLASSICAL EPICS

The Rape of the Lock is one of the best examples of mock-epic or mock-heroic poems written in English History. It is an imitation of Horatian satire, written in the Eighteenth-Century by Alexander Pope, in which he uses irony, sarcasm, and exaggeration to expose follies and vanities of the aristocratic or upper class in England in an undignified and grandiose manner. Written in heroic couplets about a trivial subject matter, the poet juxtaposes the trivial world of the upper class with the heroic deeds mentioned in the classical epics. This paper navigates the epic allusions used in The Rape of the Lock to mock the shortcomings of the upper class in England and to also satirize the epic tradition itself.