Milton VS Pope

A detailed Summary of Milton VS Pope

In Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve commit the first sin, and from this point on, all other sins are mere copies of this. Alexander Pope uses this to his benefit when he depicts the crime in The Rape of the Lock. By alluding to Milton's work, Pope is able to comically refer to the cutting of a lock of hair as a tragic and epic event. In doing this, he paradoxically assumes that the crime is not one of personal fault, but one fated to happen by God, just as in Paradise Lost.

"What dire offence from amorous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things," (Pope, ll. 1-2). These first lines of The Rape of the Lock immediately try to make light of the entire situation. The reader has yet to learn what the "dire offence" is, but already likens it to the Adam and Eve's "trivial" mistake, eating from the tree of knowledge, which forced them out of Paradis

While a face-value reading of The Rape of the Lock would make it seem just a humorous tale, Pope goes above and beyond this. The allusions to John Milton's Paradise Lost prove it to be a very cunning piece. The reader can not place blame on Sir Plume, for like Adam, he was a victim of beauty and love. At the same time, we can not look towards Clarissa because she was only acting the way her beauty would force her to. This was a crime not meant to tear two families apart, but paradoxically, a crime of fate.

Satan tells Eve that eating of the fruit will make her "not to the earth confined, / but sometimes in the air, as we;" (Milton, Bk. V, ll. 78-79). In the same manner, the angel tells Clarissa, "The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, / and sport and flutter in the fields of air" (Pope, ll. 65-66). Clarissa must believe that she should flirt and flaunt her beauty, just

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Approximate Word count = 599
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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