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Milton and Pope's The Rape of the Lock Author(s): Kent Beyette Reviewed work(s): Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 16, No. 3, Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Summer, 1976), pp. 421-436 Published by: Rice University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/449724 . Accessed: 15/03/2012 18:31
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Milton and Pope's The Rape of the Lock

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In The Rape of the Lock, as in Paradise Lost, there is a great deal of coming and going by divine messengersin the former, Ariel descends to Belinda's boudoir and Umbriel ascends from the Cave of Spleen; in the latter, Raphael and Michael descend from Heaven, and Satan ascends from Hell. So much epic voyaging is not surprising: heavenly visitations constitute one of the noblest-and most pervasive-of epic conventions, translating moral events into spatial terms and defining the scale of the hero's action even as they illustrate the capaciousness of the poet's vision. As critics are fond of pointing out, however, these angelic presences are never allowed to impinge on the human limits of the central action: of Milton's good angels one can only observe, finally, that never have so many managed to do so little; and Pope's sylphs are, at the crucial juncture of the shears, comically ineffective. The sylphs, nonetheless, give Pope's poem that aura of comic inconsequentiality linked to poignant seriousness that has so delighted and puzzled readers. The sylphs are clearly indebted to Milton's angels, and their true mission, as with Milton, is to establish perspectives on the central action-they are most important in understanding Pope's attitude toward Belinda, before and after her "fall." The precise nature of this attitude has been the subject of recent controversy. Cleanth Brooks has maintained that the poem deals in "matters of taste," that "matters of morality . . . are never raised," and criticism since can be ranged on a scale according to the degree to which it agrees or disagrees with his assessment.' But the poem's "ambiguity" or
'See Cleanth Brooks, "The case of Miss Arabella Fermor," in The Well Wrought Urn (New York, 1947), p. 98. Brooks's view, for example, has been followed by Rebecca P. Parkin, who dismisses Clarissa's speech as "narrow, hypocritical opportunism" (The Poetic Workmanship of Alexander Pope [Minneapolis, 1955], p. 127); by Hugo Reichard, who regards Belinda as "a coquette par excellence" ("The Love Affair in Pope's Rape of the Lock," PMLA, 69 [1954], 889); and by Earl Wasserman, who similarly concludes that Belinda "is not fighting off sexual union so much as the humiliation of marriage and its degrading social consequences" ("The Limits of Allusion in The Rape of the Lock," JEGP, 65 [1966], 436). That Belinda falls short of Pope's approval, despite his admiration of her charm, that, in fact, the tone of the poem indicates her actions are morally wrong, is a judgment only recently affirmed. Aubrey L. Williams points out that Professor Brooks does not face the full implications of his analysis ('The 'Fall' of China and The Rape of the Lock," PQ, 41 [1962], 419); and

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synthesis of attitudes has been emphasized too frequently, I think, at the expense of its moral judgment. The terms of that judgment are controlled, to a striking extent, by Miltonic allusion: in the poem's more serious meanings, where earthly things seem to touch on spiritual matters, and there are hints at the transcendent value of human acts, where manners shades into morals, jest into judgment, sympathy into censure, and the terms of the poem's morality are made clear-there we find a systematic and pervasive reference to Milton.

In general, the most important changes in the second edition of The Rape of the Lock are those incorporating the exquisite machinery of the sylphs (Clarissa's speech was not added until 1717), and it is in the provision of the sylphs that Milton most vividly enters the poem.2 But putting aside for the moment the consideration of the several allusions and parallels to Paradise Lost, it is to Milton's lMask and other minor poems rather than his epic that we may turn first to seek the model for Pope's sprites.3 In his introductory letter addressed to Mrs. Arabella Fermor, Pope had specifically associated the sylphs' protection with the condition of chastity, pointing out that "Mortals may enjoy the most intimate Familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a Condition very easie to all true Adepts, an inviolate Preservation of Chastity." Ariel makes the same association in Belinda's dream: "Know farther yet; Whoever fair and chaste!' Rejects Mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd" (Rape I, 67-68).4 One might
most recently Arthur W. Hoffman suggests that "Belinda is wrong in utterly rejecting Clarissa's advice" ("Spenser and The Rape of the Lock," PQ, 49 [October. 1970], 545). 2Pope follows his own advice: "If you have need of Devils, draw them out of Milton 's Paradise," from Chap. XV, "A Receipt to Make an Epic Poem" in The Art of Sinking in Poetry, ed. Edna Leake Steeves (New York, 1952), p. 83. The "Receipt" was first published as Guardian No. 78 (June 10, 1713). TForprevious citations of Miltonic allusions, see Reuben A. Brower's Alexander Pope: The Poetry of Allusion (Oxford, 1959), Geoffrey Tillotson's notes to the Twickenham Edition, and Raymond Dexter Havens' The Influence of Milton on English Poetry (Cambridge, 1922). Havens says: "It is . . . significant that, while practically all of the early pilferers from Milton made use of his epic only ... Pope used the shorter pieces in his early and later work, and, except in The Dunciad and the Homer, borrowed from them quite as much as he did from the epic" (p. 115). Havens cites five verbal parallels in Rape from Paradise Lost, but none from Comus. In his other poetry, however, Pope borrows some nineteen times from Comus (see pp. 573583). Tillotson cites some fifteen parallels to Paradise Lost, and two very minor echoes of Comus (cf. Rape II, 67 to Comus, 990; Rape IV, 64 to Comus, 720). Pope, incidentally, mentions in an October 19, 1705 letter to William Trumbull the return of a copy of Milton's minor poems, including Comus. 4All references to the text are to The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Geoffrey

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suspect, given Pope's emphasis on the problematical relationship of Belinda's chastity to her coquetry, that his intimate knowledge of Milton's works, both major and minor poems, would lead him to draw on the doctrine of chastity espoused in Comus. Indeed, in Comus we find the same sort of association made by the elder brother, who, pausing in the search for the Lady, his sister, solemnly instructs the younger brother in the divine philosophy of chastity: So dear to Heav'n is Saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried Angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear. ... (Comus, 453-458)5 In the "Morning-Dream" Ariel similarly instructs Belinda in the lore of chastity and its reward of protection through the agency of spirits: Fairest of Mortals, thou distinguish'd Care Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air! Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower Sky; These, tho' unseen, are ever on the Wing, Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring. Think what an Equipage thou hast in Air, And view with scorn Two Pages and a Chair. (Rape I, 27-46) The chief of these "thousand liveried angels" in Comus is the Attendant Spirit, living "In Regions mild of calm and serene Air,/ Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot" (Comus, 4-5), who has descended at the command of "Soveran Jove" to safeguard a chaste virgin from the snares of Circean Comus. The Spirit is much like Ariel, who, ranging "the Crystal Wilds of Air," detects "some dread Event" (Rape I, 107-109) and appears to warn Belinda of the coming

Iillotson, Twickenham Edition, II (3rd ed., rev., London and New Haven, 1962). References to the notes of this edition are cited as Tillotson. 5A11references to the texts of Comus, Paradise Regained, and 11Penseroso are to Paradise Regained The Minor Poems and Samson Agonistes, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York, 1937).

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assault. Furthermore, the elder brother's long disquisition on chastity states that the customary instruction is given through dreams, and Ariel, of course, instructs Belinda in the "Morning-Dream." Both Ariel and the Attendant Spirit, moreover, not wishing to appear in their true forms-disembodied souls of a woman and a man, respectively-disguise themselves: Ariel appears as "A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau," the Attendant Spirit as the shepherd Thyrsis. Such parallels suggest that Pope mined not only Le Comte de Gabalis but Milton's Comus for both the "machinery" of the poem and the doctrine of sacred chastity protected by the "thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!" Ariel's explanation of the essence and origin of the several kinds of sprites also may owe something to Milton's minor works. Ariel explains that "when the Fair in all their Pride expire,/ To their first Elements their Souls retire" (Rape I, 57-58). To be sure, this system of metempsychosis can be found in Ovid's Metamorphoses (XV), and it is certainly indebted to Gabalis, which divides the sprites into four types inhabiting the four elements: earth is inhabited by gnomes, air by sylphs, water by nymphs, fire by salamanders. But the equally important idea that these daemons are the departed souls of human beings may come from other sources as well.6 The idea appears in several of Milton's works, most provocatively in the digression in 11 Penseroso concerning Plato's theory of the translated souls of humans: II Penseroso wishes for The spirit of Plato to unfold What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook: And of those Daemons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground, Whose power hath a true consent With Planet, or with Element. (11.89-96)7 We should note as well the exposition in Satan's address to the devils in Paradise Regained: the "Demonian Spirits" are "rightliercall'd... Powers of Fire, Air, Water and Earth beneath" (PR II, 122-124). And

6Tillotson suggests several likely sources from Dryden (see p. 149n). One should be wary of claiming the unique source; Dryden's Ovid, Gabalis, and Milton all seem to be operative here. 7Cf. the similar suggestion of daemons inhabiting the underground in Comus, 436.

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there is a passing reference in Comus: in his opening speech Comus identifies himself as being of the "purer fire," suggesting that various refinements of fire compose the hierarchy of spirits. It is, however, the importance of the connections Pope makes between chastity, the protection of the spirits, and the possible transition of the physical body to the realm of pure spirit that suggests the richest source to be Comus, where these connections are most explicit. There we are told that chaste mankind may receive visits by "lackey" angels, Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants Begin to cast a beam on th'outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal. (Comus, 459-463) Similarly, Ariel assures Belinda that, As now your own, our Beings were of old, And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous Mold; Thence, by a soft Transition, we repair From earthly Vehicles to these of Air. (Rape I, 47-50) For both Milton and Pope, chasteness is a condition of the spirit, not a condition of the body. The Lady possesses a "hidden strength," a strength against which "No goblin or swart Faeryof the mine,/ Hath hurtful power," provided that her actions are "not done in pride or in presumption." By contrast, both pride and presumption attend Belinda's "fall," and the swarthy Umbriel's strategy for mischief succeeds. Not only can the body be transmuted into spirit, according to Milton, but the reverse process is possible: the soul can "by lewd and lavish act of sin" grow "clotted by contagion . . . till she quite lose! The divine property of her first being" (Comus, 464-469). The opposite of heavenly transpiration to angelic form is gross transmutation into "gloomy shadows damp," a transmutation realized as well in Pope's picture of the Cave of Spleen, a kind of grotesque hell of ill-nature suggesting implicitly the rewards of women embraced by mischievous gnomes rather than sylphs. Indeed, the sighing jars and "Maids turn'd Bottels," calling aloud, too late, for "Corks" are images of possible transformations of Belinda if she persists in denying reconciliation with the Baron. Milton's "gloomy

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shadows" are earthbound: they are "Oft seen in Charnel vaults, and Sepulchres,/ Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave" (Comus, 470-472). The misty Cave of Spleen contains "Strange Phantoms .. . Pale Spectres, gaping Tombs, and Purple Fires" (Rape IV, 40 ff.). To be sure, Milton's clotted souls have engaged in acts of lewd sin, while Pope's specters have engaged only in fits of temper, but we should not expect straightforward correlations: Milton's doctrine is "sage and serious," his style overtly didactic; Pope's ideal of chastity is comically phrased and archly styled.
II

However important the parallels to Comus, they gain their true significance only in conjunction with numerous complex allusions to Paradise Lost. It is a common observation that Pope's sylphs allude to Milton's angels; yet the influence of Milton's epic has seemed less extensive in The Rape of the Lock than in the later works such as the Dunciad; there Aubrey Williams has shown that, "with the exception of the Aeneid, no poem 'enters' into Pope's world of duncery more than Paradise Lost."'8Though we would not expect as consistent a parody, it still should come as no surprise that even for the much earlier Rape of the Lock Pope drew his mock-epic materials from the Satanic contexts of Milton's poem. Indeed, Pope's imitations of Paradise Lost range from explicit allusions to subtle and elusive hints, and various commentators have cited the more obvious ones, including the dream insinuated into the ear of Eve, her narcissism, and the retirement of the guardian angels after the Fall. With the notable exception of Professor Wasserman's essay dealing with the ironic allusions, however, the precise relationship of the sprites to Milton's angels has not been analyzed, particularly the effect of echoes governing the characters and relationships of Ariel and Umbriel, who seem to be modeled after Satan; the crucial resonances, moreover, between Belinda and Eve have not been fully explored. The sophistication of Pope's scheme of reference is remarkable; Ariel echoes both Raphael and Satan, for example, and the reverberations of Eve in Belinda's presentation are frequently ironic, delicately qualifying our admiring predispositions and creating ambiguities in tone leading to disparate interpretations of Pope's precise attitude toward her coquetry. The provocative imitations underlying Ariel's creation readily illustrate Pope's complex method. On the one hand, the possibility of
sPope's Dunciad (Baton Rouge, 1955), p. 131.

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transmutation to a higher form suggested in Ariel's dream-speech echoes not only Comus but Raphael's address in Paradise Lost, where, appearing to warn Adam of the coming attempt by Satan, he suggests that perhaps human bodies may at last turn all to spirit, Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend Ethereal, as wee, or may at choice Here or in Heav'nly Paradises dwell; If ye be found obedient, and retain Unalterably firm his love entire Whose progeny you are. (PL V, 497-503)9 On the other hand, Satan's dream-temptation of Eve similarly evokes, and shrewdly intensifies, the possibility of apotheosis. Attractively guised and scented-"One shap'd and wing'd like one of those from Heav'n," "his dewy locks distill'd Ambrosia" -he solicits the "fair Angelic Eve" to be henceforth among the Gods Thyself a Goddess, not to Earth confin'd, But sometimes in the Air, as wee, sometimes Ascend to Heav'n, by merit thine, and see What life the Gods live there, and such live thou. (PL V, 77-81) Admittedly, the complexity of such allusiveness may be laid less to Pope's technique than to Milton's artistic paralleling of the activities and speeches of obedient and rebellious spirits, creating thereby a sophisticated rhetoric of valid but untrue arguments by Satan. In presenting Ariel, Pope also commands such a rhetoric, and by the same means. Ariel both warns and promises-warns Belinda of impending "dire Disaster" and promises concourse with the sylphs on the condition of strict obedience to the laws of chastity. So too, Raphael's mission "forewarn'd Adam by dire example," at the same time promising transition to spirit on the condition of obedience to God's single prohibition. It is not Raphael, however, but Satan, lingering "Squat like a Toad, close at the ear of Eve;/ Assaying by his Devilish art to reach/ The Organs of her Fancy" (PL IV, 800-802), who conjures up the dream vision vividly echoed by Ariel whispering

references to the text of Paradise Lost are to Paradise Lost, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes 9AI1 (New York, 1962).

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at Belinda's ear: Ariel "Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay." The similarities are greater than one at first realizes: in both dreams a guide appears and renders a philosophical disquisition on the nature of good and evil and the powers of Providence; both visions are emanations of the psychological situations of the dreamers; both foreshadow the temptations soon to come. Prepared by the hint that Belinda is tempted by a gorgeous but satanic beau, we are thus ready for the ironic inversion of Raphael's instructions that soon follows as Ariel attempts to inflate Belinda's pride. "Hear and believe!" he tells her, "thy own Importance know,/ Nor bound thy narrow Views to Things below." Ariel thus violates all the carefully presented dicta of Milton on the tragic results of human pride.'0 Since these dicta are well known, they need not detain us further; we can only regret for Belinda's sake that she did not recall Raphael's famous injunction to Adam: "Heav'n is for thee too high/ To know what passes there; be lowly wise" (PL VIII, 172-173). Finally, Ariel's concluding warning, "Beware of all, but most beware of Man!" echoes, among other epic sources, Raphael's concluding caution, "The weal or woe in thee is plac't; beware" (PL VIII, 638). So although the resemblance of Ariel to Raphael is strong, and his warning mission indebted to Raphael's visit to Adam, the ironic significance of his speech places him closer to the character of Satan, the false "Guide" of Eve's dream. Pope's complex rhetoric of allusion can, then, be viewed as two related but essentially different methods: the first is a witty but straightforward diminution of epic characters and situations: such a method parallels the imitation with its original. Professor Hoffman, analyzing Pope's allusions to Spenser, likens this method to a railroad track, one rail the original, one the parody, the two tied together by a series of allusions. The second method is allusive irony: Ariel's instructions to Belinda allude to but invert the guidance of Raphael; at the same time they allude to Satan's dream-temptation of Eve, creating an ironic contrast between the good intentions and the potential evils of the sylph's advice.

'?The similarity is provocative. Satan inflates Eve's pride through flattery: Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair, Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine By gift, and thy Celestial Beauty adore A Goddess among Gods, ador'd and serv'd By Angels numberless, thy daily Train.

(PL IX, 538-548)

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Those evils are not to be taken lightly: indeed, in recompense for the spurned human world of sexual and spiritual commitment, Ariel promises a Satanic substitute, a rival world of narcissistic coquetry and artifice, whose greatest attraction is at one with its greatest evilpride of self-sufficiency. One of Pope's most brilliant conceptions is the symbolic presentation of this damning attribute. Belinda, for example, is characterized repeatedly by cosmological and astronomical metaphor; if some sylphs "guide the Course of wandring Orbs on high,/ Or roll the Planets thro' the boundless Sky" (Rape II, 79-80), others analogously guide the fair coquette through the complex dance of social intrigue: Oft when the World imagine Women stray, The Sylphs thro' mystick Mazes guide their Way, Thro' all the giddy Circle they pursue, And old Impertinence expel by new. (Rape I, 91-94) Such a metaphor may be ascribable to Milton's planet-like dance of angels surrounding the effulgent Deity who spend their day in Mystical dance, which yonder starry Sphere Of Planets and of fixt in all her Wheels Resembles nearest, mazes intricate, Eccentric, intervolv'd, yet regular Then most, when most irregular they seem.... (PL V, 620-624) The subtlety of such reference functions within an encompassing motif of similar imagery (astronomy pervades The Rape of the Lock as fully as Paradise Lost) by which Belinda achieves a tropological divinity. Her beauty the care of priestesses and supernatural sylphs, her dressing table a minature Orient, her mislaid Lock a new star, her very "Tortoise" and "Elephant" comb the foundation of the world, Belinda is the cynosure, the sun goddess, of an artful universe governed by her charm. Ultimately, neither Ariel's instructions nor his faithful guard can preserve this glorious but prideful cosmos. But to regret the sylphs' retreat is to misread the moral; Pope's complex allusive irony ultimately suggests that Ariel's protection should fail, for the sylph is dedicated to the preservation of the false value of a sterile and unmediated chastity. Indeed, Ariel's rule is short. His well-meant but Satanic advice, though temporarily succeeding as Belinda performs the "sacredRites of Pride" at her dressing table, eventually fails, for Belinda seeks an

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"Earthly Lover"; Ariel retreats, to be replaced by Umbriel, and the action of the poem moves from a brilliant but sterile coquetry through mock-heroic debate to a wittily bawdy splenetic fit. The complexity of our response to the action depends, finally, on our recognition of Pope's judicious blend of Miltonic parallel and ironic allusion. We should keep in mind that Milton himself used the same methods-Satan is reduced, our perspective on him controlled, by skilled architectural parallel and irony developed in the contrasting spheres of Heaven and Hell. If Pope learned his method from Dryden, as Professor Brower so ably suggests, he nonetheless found it formally exhibited in Milton on a grand scale open, by its own participation in parody, to satirical treatment. Although it has not been generally recognized, the influence of Paradise Lost extends into Cantos IV and V, especially in the character of Umbriel, who seems to be a diminished imitation of Milton's "obscured" Satan. In a well known allusion, the weeping Ariel, after the loss of the Lock, retreats from Belinda much as Milton's "mute and sad" angelic guards ascend to heaven. The context of Paradise Lost established, Umbriel begins his epic journey: For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew, And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dusky melancholy Spright, As ever sully'd the fair face of Light, Down to the Central Earth, his proper Scene, Repair'd to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen. Swift on his sooty Pinions flitts the Gnome, And in a Vapour reach'd the dismal Dome. (Rape IV, 13-18) One may see, perhaps, in the darkness of Umbriel sullying the face of Light, a reference to Satan." His journey hints at Satan's as well: so too, "Satan with thoughts inflam'd of highest design,/ Puts on swift wings, and towards the Gates of Hell/ Explores his solitary flight," passing into the realm of Chaos where "his Sail-broad Vans/ He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke/ Uplifted spurns the ground," only to fail momentarily as "all unawares/ Flutt'ring his pennons vain plumb down he drops" (PL II, 630-632; 927-933). The interview with Spleen successful, Umbriel "rejoicing bears her Gifts away,/ Spreads his black Wings, and slowly mounts to Day" (Rape IV, 87-88). Similarly, Satan's appeal for aid succeeding, "the sacred

"Note especially Satan's description as a sunspot (PL III, 588-589).

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influence/ Of light appears,"'he "'Weighshis spread wings,' and hies "Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge" (PL II, 1034-1055). The resemblances are more than passing. Satan's mission of revenge first bears fruit at the ear of dreaming Eve: he hopes to "taint/ Th' animal spirits," and raise "Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires/ Blown up with high conceits ingend'ring pride" (PL IV, 804 ff.); the gnome's object is to "taint the Female Soul," to "swell their Prospects and exalt their Pride,/ ... Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant Brain" (Rape I, 81-87). And just as the hopes of Chaos and Satan for "Havoc and spoil and ruin" coincide, the gnome's objective of replacing happiness with havoc coincides with the goddess of Spleen's desires. Even the allegorical "visage incompos'd" of Chaos is something like the equally allegorical "discontented Air" of the Goddess. Most importantly, Satan claims that his foray will restore the kingdom of Night and Chaos, much as Umbriel's mission will restore the kingdom of the dour Goddess by giving "half the World the Spleen."
III

The threat of the "uncreation" of the world by the action of Spleen, though it lightly satirizes Belinda's female anger, is to be taken seriously. Pope's parody tacitly suggests that The Rape of the Lock, like Comus and Paradise Lost, concerns a struggle between true values and false values-a "war" presented in the microcosm of Belinda's mind but reflected in the macrocosm of society. This theme of the preservation of social morality in private virtue I take to be central and exhibited repeatedly. Consider, for example, the apparently irrelevant intrusion of Pope's figure of the hungry judges who "soon the Sentence sign,/ And Wretches hang that Jury-men may Dine" (Rape III, 21-22). The figure does more than establish the time of day-it suggests that large fates hang upon small matters, that insignificant incidents control significant destinies, that human judgment is subject to the passions of appetite. Thematically coincident, Belinda's temper, insignificant in itself, controls significant occurrences in the world at large. And, if the significance of Belinda's spiritual and mental state is reduced by epic comparison, it is at the same time analogically enlarged to the greater scale of social relationships. After the lock is lost to the Baron, Umbriel renders the Satanic counsel of despair, symbolized in terms of Spleen's bag of winds and vial of tears. Tillotson cites as a possible source, and quite rightly, the Spenserian parallel of the bottle of contrition and the bag of

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repentance in The Faerie Queene (VI.viii.23ff.). As Arthur W. Hoffman, however, has noted in his discussion of this parallel, Thaelestris' speech, stirred by the bag, is a long way from repentance, and Belinda's, stirred by the vial, a long way from contrition.'2 Pope, then, may have borrowed the containers-bag and bottle-from Spenser, but their contents derive from some other source. In fact, the situation of Thaelestris and Belinda after her "fall" is most reminiscent of the post-lapsarian squabbling of Adam and Eve. Here is Pope's description of allegorical tempers: A wondrous Bag with both her Hands she binds, Like that where once Ulysses held the Winds; There she collects the Force of Female Lungs, Sighs, Sobs, and Passions, and the War of Tongues. A Vial next she fills with fainting Fears, Soft Sorrows, melting Griefs, and flowing Tears. (Rape IV, 81-86) The despair of Adam and Eve is presented thus: . . . not at rest or ease of Mind, They sat them down to weep, nor only Tears Rain'd at thir Eyes, but high Winds worse within Began to rise, high Passions, Anger, Hate, Mistrust, Suspicion, Discord, and shook sore Thir inward State of Mind, calm Region once And full of Peace, now toss't and turbulent.... (PL IX, 1120-1126) The raining tears and "high Winds" of passion are matched by equivalent disorders in nature-the fall of man is the fall of all the world. These are not the tears of contrition or repentance, but a splenetic display resulting from the Fall. Genuine contrition is to follow, of course, and obtain God's forgiveness. But, significantly, forgiveness cannot enter a climate of discord. In much the same way, Belinda refuses to see her error, and Thaelestris is equally blind, thinking that the recovery of the lock will salvage reputation. So Milton describes Adam and Eve spending "fruitless hours" in "mutual accusation . . . but neither self-condemning,/ And of thir vain contest appear'd no end" (PL IX, 1187-1189). Meanwhile, the earth is the victim of "Discord first/ Daughter of Sin" (PL X, 707-708) who spreads war among all things, animate and inanimate. The
'2SeeHoffman's discussion, pp. 542-543.

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relevance of the scenes of Adam and Eve quarreling is apparent, in spite of the tenuous verbal echoes, for Adam and Eve are soon to become genuinely penitent, "with tears/ Watering the ground, and with thir sighs the Air/ Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign/ Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek" (PL X, 11011104). Their genuine remorse comments on the opposite response of Belinda. If Adam and Eve are at first tempted into false values-pride, despair, accusation, false reasoning-they eventually seek true values-humility, contrition, penitence, and hope in one another. Belinda does not, and her choice of false values is reflected in her hollow triumph over the Baron. After the lock is lost to the Baron, then, Umbriel offers, implicitly, the counsel of despair. Clarissa, in strong contrast, renders good advice, which is regrettably, though understandably, ignored by Belinda. Clarissa's advice, designed by Pope to "open more clearly the Moral," must fail of course-the situation demands it, for one thing, and for another, her choice of idea and image undercuts her rhetoric. "Small-pox," "old Age," the possibility of being an old Maid-these melancholy subjects are not likely to increase Belinda's store of "good Humour." But Clarissa's counsel is nonetheless sound: "How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,/ Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains." Her speech, reminiscent of Raphael's instructions in subject if not phrasing, is throughout an admonishment to abandon the vanity of sensuality (beauty unaccompanied by virtue), to abandon pretense to knowledge other than that of ordinary usefulness, to abandon the presumption of empty glory and fame that will, after all, soon fade, to abandon the artificiality of paint and patch and seek genuine virtue. Her choice of false values is reflected in a kind of concluding bawdy parody of the Miltonic situation after the Fall-a post-lapsarian squabble threatening the peace and stability of the world. The threat to the future of man on Milton's scale serves as background for the threat to Belinda's carefully ordered world. Urania is Milton's muse, Caryll Pope's; but, ultimately, they are of equal importance. The frame of reference for Belinda's actions, though frequently elusive or artfully concealed, exhibits itself in a subtle weave, establishing the larger significance of Pope's meaning. We should recall, in particular, Thaelestris' recalcitrance, which extends to the threatened return of Chaos to earth. She concludes her tirade with this possibility: "Sooner let Earth, Air, Sea, to Chaos fall,/ Men, Monkies, Lap-dogs, Parrots, perish all!" (Rape IV, 119-120). Without carrying the reference to Chaos too far-Pope's allusions are subtle

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overtones-I would still suggest that Pope plays on the eschatological imagery of Paradise Lost: the threat of a disordered, fallen world. If the battle of the beaux and belles is mock-heroic battle-and it surely is-it is, as well, reminiscent of the "waste and havoc" of the newly fallen world, the paradise lost, presenting us with a comic Chaos: Fans clap, Silks russle, and tough Whalebones crack; Heroes' and Heroins' Shouts confus'dly rise, And base, and treble Voices strike the Skies. Jove's Thunder roars, Heav'n trembles all around; Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing Deeps resound; Earth shakes her nodding Tow'rs, the Ground gives way.... (Rape V, 40-51) Thaelestris' belligerent resolve almost comes true: the "Air," the "Sea," and the "Earth"-all are about to dissolve in uncreative Chaos. Satan's promise to restore the world to the monarch of Chaos and Umbriel's promise to restore the world to the goddess of Spleen are more than superficially linked. The preservation of social morality in private virtue, a theme stressed earlier, is tacitly reinforced in several ways. Near the end of the poem, Pope alludes to the handkerchief in Othello: Restore the Lock! she cries; and all around Restore the Lock! the vaulted Roofs rebound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a Strain Roar'd for the Handkerchief that caus'd his Pain. (Rape V, 103-106) Geoffrey Tillotson notes the covert allusion to Rymer's slanging of Othello in A Short View of Tragedy (1693) in which he suggests '3 calling the play the "Tragedy of the Handkerchief." Pope may well be satirizing Rymer's critique; yet he also recognizes that from trivial misunderstandings great tragedies may rise, that the ordered fabric of society is held together by slender threads. So the situation of the handkerchief is akin to that of the Lock, the allusion establishing at the same time the insignificance of the incident and its potential for social disorder. The comic exaggeration of Belinda's tragedy is, of course, implied in Pope's title. One might well call, on similar grounds, Milton's Paradise Lost the "tragedy of the apple." I do not
'3Tillotson, p. 208n.

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suggest that Pope held such a simplistic view of Paradise Lost, only that for comic purposes he employs Milton's idea that the fate of mankind depends on the resolution of a lovers' quarrel. The conflict concludes with Umbriel and Spleen, Thaelestris and Belinda triumphant, the quarrel unresolved, the social fabric torn, the precious Lock mislaid. There is a dual resolution of the situation by Pope, however. For one thing, Belinda's Lock rises to the heavens, above the lesser vanities enshrined in the "Lunar Sphere." Pope's tone is still controlled by his machinery-he implies the Lock's actual value by the accompaniment of the sylphs, who overvalue such superficialities. The second, genuine resolution is poetic, for Pope does "restore" the Lock, as Belinda demands: he offers the poem in place of the missing hair: Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd Hair Which adds new Glory to the shining Sphere! This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to Fame, And mid'st the Stars inscribe Belinda's Name! (Rape V, 141-150) That is, the poem itself, "This Lock," is written to replace the actual one. The conceit is conventional-it strongly echoes a similar sentiment in Spenser's Amoretti-but it is also thematically significant, for it suggests that poetry has a compensatory creative power that is preservative of order. The "Lock" is removed to the eternal sphere of art, at the same time creatively healing the breach, stilling the quarrel, and fostering the social good. So in spite of the bawdy chords, there are spiritual overtones-the false value of earthly chastity and beauty is contrasted with the true value of spiritual chastity and beauty. Pope's vision is unclouded here, but his final note suggests the important theme of the sanctity of art, a theme explored later in the darkened vision of the Dunciad, where bad art and social evil are intimate. Since God, according to Pope, is not only transcendent but immanent in all things high and low, man's actions, when stimulated by disordered passions, have a potential for moral evil. As he says in An Essay on Man, "The least confusion but in one, not all/ That system only, but the whole must fall" (I, 249-250).i Belinda's

'4An Essay on Man, ed. Maynard Mack, Twickenham Edition, III, i (London and New Haven, 1950).

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"fall" implies far more than witty innuendo about her chastity, and she violates more, too, than the standards of "taste." She violates the true character of woman. Her lapse is the failure to be "Mistress of herself, tho' China fall,"15 the failure to recover the "moral harmony" of her little world made cunningly. That moral judgment, stated overtly by Clarissa, is artfully sustained by a systematic reference of allusion and parallel to Milton's works. The University of Florida

'5"Epistle II, To a Lady, Of the Charactersof Women," in Epistles to Several Persons (Moral Essays), ed. F. W. Bateson, Twickenham Edition, III, ii (2nd ed., London and New Haven, 1962). The true woman Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys; Lets Fops or Fortune fly which way they will; Disdains all loss of Tickets, or Codille; Spleen, Vapours, or Small-pox, above them all, And Mistress of herself, tho' China fall. (11.263-268)