The Rape of the Lock: supernatural/Epic machinery

             In his letter to Mrs. Arabella Fermor, Pope explains the term Machinery as "a term invented by the critics to signify that part which the Deities, Angels or Demons are made to act in a poem". One is reminded of the Olympian Gods in Homer, Jehovah, Christ and the angles in "Paradise Lost" and the Hindu Gods in "The Ramayana" and "The Mahabharata". Anyway, the supernatural agencies in the classical epics are called Machinery because in their dramatic representation they were let down on the stage by some sort of machine(a rope and pulley).

                    Although pope follow the classical tradition of 'machinery', his application of it is fresh and original. He owes to the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits. Accordingly, the four elements- earth, water, air and fire are inhabited by four spirits-Gnomes, Nymphs, Sylphs and Salamanders respectively. Moreover, he improves upon it by adopting the then Ovidian Transmigration of souls. Thus, the "soft-yielding minds' to Nymphs, the 'graver prudes' to Gnomes and the 'light coquettes' to sylphs.

                            Again, While unlike the Olympian Gods, They are the "light militia of the lower sky" or "denizens of air", they exist in different plains of the space with different preoccupations. Some play in the fields of 'purest ether' and bask in the sun, some determine the course and movement of comets, some less refined beneath the moon's pale night, do the same of meteors or other things, while some others preside over "human race" on the earth. Thus, in pope's epic machinery, the natural and the supernatural are admirably blended into one, without producing any shock.

                The supernatural forces in "The Rape of the Lock" are the parody of the machinery of the classical writers not only in respect of their origin and status but also in their activities. Here, the forces do not take part in serious affairs of the mortals but in the trivial ones. pope mimics the involvement of the forces in was(in the amorous war) to be waged by Belinda. They accompany her in the pleasure trip to Thames, in clubs and parties, in the theatre of Hampton court or Hyde Park-"These, though unseen, are ever on the wing,/ Hang over the box, and hover round the Ring". While Ariel, her guardian sylph, prolongs her morning sleep ('balmy rest') and facilitates the morning dream, the other sylphs are engaged to dress and deck her on the toilet. Some of them are engaged to collect colour or perfume from the rainbow or vernal flowers to brighten cosmetic lotion. And finally, some of them are deployed to improve her coquettish appearance. While the sylphs make her seductive to look at, they also appear as guardian angles, protecting her and other fashionable ladies from falling into amorous traps. If the sylphs are the voice of  conscience only too often, the mischievous gnomes are found instigating the ladies in their immoral pursuits like fickleness and frivolity, hollowness and hypocrisy of the fashionable ladies to the contrast between appearance and reality in the spirits. What a mock-heroic deflation! 

                    The chief reason for adding the supernatural machinery to the poem is the desire to heighten the mockery, the source of which lies in the total ineffectiveness of the sylphs. It is striking to note that while Ariel as a guardian sprit apprehends some danger in Belinda's life, he is ignorant of 'what' or 'where' of it. The situation is mock-heroically convincing. The silly affair to take place(i.e. clipping of a lock of hair from Belinda's head)  is described as 'dire disaster' in an epic vein. In this respect, the sylphs are simply caricature of the serious counterparts in epics as their intervention is of no avail- one of the sylphs who comes between the lock and the shears gets cut along with the lock (canto III, 1.151). Even Ariel discreetly withdraws from the field of action when he detects an earthly lover lurking in Belinda's breast(canto III, 1.144).

                                So, in genesis, nature and function, pope's 'machinery' remains a "delightful downscaling of the Epic Machines"(Cunningham). Thanks t the poet's fantastic filigree of wit and fancy. Through its use, Pope really mocks at the eighteenth-century society along with the amorous license used by the lords and ladies in their game of coquetry and flirtation without moral consideration. thus, the supernatural elements contribute to the poet's mock-heroic criticism of the follies and foibles of the contemporary pleasure-seeking butterflies.

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