Elective Course in English

UNDERSTANDING POETRY
(EEG–06)

Oue1. Discuss “The Rape of the Lock” as a mock-epic poem.

Ans1. The epic is a narrative poem, of supposed divine inspiration, treating of a subject of great and
momentous importance for mankind, the characters of the story being partly human and partly
divine, and the language and style in which the incidents are related being full of elevation and
dignity.

If a long narrative poem should satisfy all the tests of epic poetry, but if the subject which is
celebrated be of a trivial nature, like the cutting off a lock of a woman's hair, which is the story that is
related in Pope's The Rape of the Lock, then such a poem is called a mock-epic poem. A mock-epic
poem is supposed to be the inspiration of a Muse, the characters are partly human and partly divine,
and the language is stilted and grandiose, but the subject is of a very frivolous and commonplace
nature. Pope called The Rape of the Lock a "heroi-comical poem", which is another name for a
mock-epic. It belongs to the class of literature called "burlesque". A burlesque is a parody on a large
scale, in which not a single poem, but a whole type of style of literature is parodied, the language and
thought proper to a serious theme reproduced in setting forth something ridiculous or trivial.

Instead of grand passions and great fights between heroes in which the immortals take part, we have
as the theme of The Rape of the Lock a petty amorous quarrel assisted by the spirits of the air. The
epic portrays an age round the personality of a god or a semi-god, and its characters are heroes. The
Rape of the Lock, on the other hand, gives us a picture of a fashionable society. The central figure in
that picture is a pretty society girl, and the other characters are a rash youth, a foolish dandy and a
few frivolous women. Instead of deep and genuine passions as found in ancient epics, we come
across a succession of mock passions in The Rape of the Lock.

The action of The Rape of the Lock turns on a trivial incident—the cutting off a lock of hair from a
lady's head. Such a thing had taken place in reality. One lord Petre cut off a lock of hair from the
head of Lady Arabella Fermor. There was a quarrel between the two families, and Pope was
requested to make a jest of the incident, and 'laugh them together'. This was the occasion of the
composition of the poem. Pope did give to the world a fine work of wit—the best mock-heroic poem
in the English language, but we do not know whether the families were reconciled.

The theme of the poem is suggested in the invocation, as in an epic poem, but the theme is
ridiculously trivial, in comparison with the grand theme of an epic. The action opens with a mock-
heroic manner with the awakening of Belinda, the heroine of the poem. Belinda is the very goddess
of beauty, and the luster of her eyes surpasses that of the sun, who peeped timorously through the
white curtains in Belinda's room: "Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray, / And opened those
eyes that must eclipse the day."

The whole structure of The Rape of the Lock is cast in the epic mood, but it could not be a serious
epic because the incident is trivial—so we have the mock-heroic or heroi-comical poem. The poem is
divided into Cantos like an epic poem, and there are ironic parallels to the main Incidents of the epic.
The poem begins with an invocation in epic tradition: "Say, what strange motive, Goddness! could
compel / A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle?" As in epics, in The Rape of the Lock, too, divine
beings are portrayed. Belinda is in the divine care of the sylphs: "Fairest of mortals, thou
distinguished 'care, / Of thousand bright inhabitants of air". But then the sylphs are fragile, airy
beings and they are helpless before the caprices of men. Despite all their concern for Belinda, her
beautiful lock of hair is raped by the naughty Baron. There is the mischievous gnome who, like
Milton's Satan, is intent upon making Belinda miserable and thereby all her admirers. The gnome,
addresses the wayward Queen who rules the sex from fifteen to fifty, thus: "Hear me, and touch
Belinda with chagrin, / That single act gives half the world the spleen."

The epic always uses the supernatural element. In The Iliad there are gods and goddesses; in The
Rape of the Lock, there are the sylphs and gnomes. These aerial spirits are small and insignificant
things, and are, therefore, exactly in keeping with the triviality of the theme. They guard the person
of the heroine and when there is a fight between the followers of Belinda and those of the Baron;
they take part in the fight, like the gods and goddesses in the Trojan War: "Propped on their bodkin
spears, the spirits survey, / The growing combat or assist the fray."

An epic poem must contain some episodes also. In keeping with this practice Pope has introduced the
episode of the game of Ombre which is described in great detail. There is also the hazardous journey
of Umbriel to the Cave of Spleen. Then there is the battle between the lords and ladies just like the
battles in epic poetry. But in the true mock-heroic style this battle is fought with fans and snuff
instead of with swords and spears.

There are single combats also between Belinda and the Baron and between Clarissa and Sir Plume.
Belinda's toilet is another engaging account in which Pope has attributed in a perfect mock-heroic
manner, the solemnity of a religious observance to the luxurious toilet of a lady of fashion and
frivolity. Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux, are all brought to the same table and the slight
and the series are all strangely synthesized.

The Rape of the Lock is a rare instance in which the slight theme is given an exalted treatment for
satirical purposes. All through the poem, a pose of importance is given to all that is thoroughly
unimportant and insignificant and practically meaningless and farcical. The very conception of
writing an epic on the rape of a lock of hair is funny and bears testimony to the poet's effort to make
the little great and the great little.

In The Rape of the Lock the balance between the concealed irony and the assumed gravity is nicely
trimmed: the little is made great and the great made little. It is the triumph of insignificance, the
apotheosis of foppery and folly
Que2. Bring out the autobiographical elements in “Tintern Abbey”.

Ans2.Romantic Autobiography and Modern Self: A Reading of "Tintern Abbey"

It is a commonsense that "Tintern Abbey" has some autobiographical elements prefiguring a modern
idea of self-consciousness. But it is not easy to answer the question properly what kind of
autobiography "Tintern Abbey" really is and in what sense. This paper begins with an understanding
that "Tintern Abbey" is not an autobiography of William Wordsworth as such. The poetic narrator of
"Tintern Abbey" is not a unitary voice of Wordsworth of 1798 but a complex of diverse speakers
representing each phase of his poetic experiments in the 1790s. Each narrator is not a lyrical speaker
reflecting Wordsworth own emotion at the time of visiting the site, but a poetic device set up for a
unique poetic effect. With this understanding, it is not important at all how faithfully the narrator
reflects Wordsworth own "real" voice at the time even if it were possible to recover that "real" voice.
This paper tries to uncover by a close examination of "Tintern Abbey"'s narrator the traces of
Wordsworth's diverse experiments of poetic forms carried out during those "five years" intervening
his two visits to Tintern Abbey. "Those five years" mentioned at the outset of the poem was indeed
the period when Wordsworth explored various options of possible political commitments but it did
not come to any result of significance. What did take place indeed during "those five years", as far as
we could confirm, was a series of poetic compositions through which Wordsworth "grew" his poetic
self that matured at the end of the period enough to author that ground breaking work called Lyrical
Ballads containing "Tintern Abbey" itself. This paper identifies those four disparate narrators in
"Tintern Abbey"'s narration, which are picturesque, didactic, autobiographical, and elegiac ones
representing each the poetic forms Wordsworth had experimented by 1798. Such reading is possible
of course only with hindsight, with knowledge of what Wordsworth was up to during "those five
years". But such reading with hindsight enables us to establish "Tintern Abbey" as a particular type
of modern autobiography with more convincing evidences, which is, a poetic autobiography
presenting the growth of a poetic self, which Wordsworth was due to commit himself to in the
ensuing works, most prominently in The Prelude.
Que3.Discuss “O Captain! My Captain” as an elegy.

Ans3.

Walt Whitman's tone in "O Captain! My Captain!" is largely elegiac, in that it resembles an elegy.
The poem was written in honor of President Lincoln following his assassination, and it also has
celebratory passages that mark the end of the Civil War.

The poem starts with a tone of praise and commendation, as "our fearful trip is done." Whitman
praises Lincoln's efforts during the Civil War, stating that "the port is near." In other words, Lincoln
led the ship of state through the war, and the ship is about to safely be led to port. Then, the poem has
a more mournful tone in the second part of each stanza (the second half of each stanza is indented).
For example, the second part of the first stanza reads, "But O heart! heart! heart!" The repetition of
the word "heart" and the reference to "bleeding drops of red" refer to the nation's grief over Lincoln's
assassination.

The second stanza mentions the celebrations that are being conducted to commemorate the end of the
war. The poem mentions the ways in which the nation is celebrating, including bells, bugle calls, and
"bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths." In the midst of this celebration, mourners are grieving for Lincoln,
who is commemorated in a more somber tone in the second half of the stanza, which begins "Here
Captain! dear father!"

The third stanza begins with an elegiac tone. It starts, "My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale
and still." The second half of the stanza is both celebratory and somber. It begins, "Exult O shores,
and ring O bells!" In other words, the poet wants the celebrations of the war's end to continue, but he
says he will be in mourning: "But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies." This goes
back to the metaphor of the ship of state, on whose deck Lincoln lies slain.
Que4.“Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening” is a song of life and action. Elucidate.

Ans4.Robert Frost wrote "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" in 1922, two years before
winning the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes. The poem tells the story of a man traveling through some
snowy woods on the darkest evening of the year, and he's pretty much in love with what he sees
around him. He's on his way back to town, but he can't quite tear himself away from the lovely and
dark woods.

People love to talk about what this poem means. Some argue that it is simply a description of a man
appreciating nature. Others would tell you that there is some heavy metaphor action going down, and
that the poem is about death. And there are those who take it a step further and say that this poem
addresses suicide. Nature-lovers see it as a piece that trumpets nature and that scorns civilization
(take that, civilization!). You probably have your own idea of what this poem means. We at Shmoop
have an inkling that the heart of this poem's awesomeness lies in how it sounds rather than in what it
means, and so we're going to take some time to look at and listen to the sounds in this .

Robert Frost is a beloved American poet, and many people associate him with nature and with the
New England landscape, because, well, he liked to write about nature and the New England
landscape. He was born in San Francisco (land of the sourdough), but spent most of his years in
snowy places like Massachusetts and New Hampshire (land of the maple syrup).

Frost is known for creating simple poems that can be interpreted on many different levels. He also
loved to inject everyday, colloquial speech into his poems. He was big on sounds, often talking about
how the sounds of words carry more meaning than the words themselves. Check it:
"What we do get in life and miss so often in literature is the sentence

sounds that underlie the words. Words themselves do not convey meaning,

and to prove this let us take the example of two people who

are talking on the other side of a closed door, whose voices can be heard

but whose words cannot be distinguished. Even though the words do not

carry, the sound of them does, and the listener can catch the meaning of

the conversation.To me a sentence is not interesting merely in

conveying a meaning of words. It must do something more; it must convey a

meaning by sound."

So, if we follow Mr. Frost's advice, we shouldn't be so concerned with what this poem means as
concerned with how it means. Let's warm up our vocal chords and perk up our ears, because
something tells us we're going to be reciting and listening to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening" until the wee hours of the night.

Que5. “Indian Summer” has a simple theme but rich evocative imagery. How far do you 20
agree? Explain and illustrate your answer with suitable examples.

Ans5.