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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The love affair which has a title part in the Rape of the Lock was perhaps once so obvious as to need no comment; at least Dr. Johnson thought “the subject of the poem … an event below the common incidents of common life.” By the twentieth century the love story seemed so obscure as to defy analysis; at least Geoffrey Tillotson thought that the rejection of the hero by the heroine was unaccountable. A decade ago Cleanth Brooks refurbished the action as a neo-classic campaign in the unending “war of the sexes” over rites of possession. Some such pattern of pre-marital courtship is doubtless a norm assumed for the comedy of the poem, as it is—William K. Wimsatt reminds us—for Molière's Misanthrope, Congreve's Way of the World, and Meredith's Egoist. While suggestively approaching the plan of the action, however, Brooks has rather too closely assimilated Pope's particular campaign to the general war. If the comedy of the poem posits a norm, it also sets forth a divergence. One is free to speculate that in a hypothetical sequel to Pope's poem the Baron and Belinda might have gone on (like other gallivanting young people, indeed like Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre) to get married—he to another woman, she to another man. But as it stands the poem is not directly concerned with what Brooks calls “the elaborate and courtly conventions under which Belinda fulfills her natural function of finding a mate” (p. 84). Both Belinda and the Baron are at the age of exuberance where the armor of courtship fits rather loosely, like the helmet Swift stuck on Dryden. Feigning “death,” sophisticating love, and shunning marriage, they wage a mock war in a mock-heroic poem. Their maneuvers, I wish to show, make the plot of the poem a contest of wiles between commanding personalities—an uninhibited philanderer and an invincible flirt.
1 Lives of the English Poets, ed. G. B. Hill (Oxford, 1905), iii, 234.
2 The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems (London, 1940), p. 92. My citations from the Lock and the Temple of Fame are to this edition. Citations from Pope's other poems, with 2 obvious exceptions, are to the companion volumes in the Twickenham edition. In short quotations, of prose as well as verse, I have modernized spelling and capitalization.
3 “The Case of Miss Arabella Fermor: A Re-examination,” Sewanee Rev., li (1943), 505-524. My citations are drawn from the collected version of the essay in The Well Wrought Urn (New York, 1947), pp. 74-95.
4 Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry & Prose (New York, 1951), p. xxxvii.
5 The Lock is a surprisingly clear illustration that though Pope is an occasional poet, his poems usually transcend their occasions. Its amour is quite unaffected by the marriage and death of the Baron's prototype, even though the first version of the poem (1712) was published some 2 or 3 months after Lord Petre's marriage to Catherine Warmsley, and the second version (1714) followed Lord Petre's death by almost 12 months (Tillotson, pp. 93, 96, 99, 353). We know only one way in which the amour of the poem is modeled on the relationship of Lord Petre and Miss Fermor, for we know only one solitary event in their relationship—the shearing of the lock. We know also that—but not why—Miss Fermor was piqued at the published poem (Tillotson, pp. 89-93). She might well be piqued if she saw Belinda as I see her.
6 The very term coquette seems, in the OED, to have first found much use only after the Restoration. The Spectator hints that it was a smart word in the early century: it reports that an amorous but unworldly young Oxonian who was vexed by a pert young lady in London “railed at coquettes as soon as he had got the word” (No. 605). My citations from the essays are to these editions: The Tatler, ed. George A. Aiken, 4 vols. (London, 1898-99); The Spectator, ed. G. Gregory Smith, 4 vols. (London: Everyman's Library, 1945); The Guardian, in The British Essayists, ed. Alex. Chalmers (Boston, 1846), Vols. xiii-xv.
7 The Best of Pope (New York, 1945), p. 398.
8 Pp. 84, 88-89. In a paraphrase of Brooks's doctrine, Maynard Mack—The Augustans (New York, 1950), p. 24—says that “Belinda arms her beauty for an encounter the object of which is not to defeat the enemy but to yield to him—on the proper terms.”
9 Like Pope, the Spectator appreciated both the brief joys and prolonged punishments of incorrigible coquettes. On the one hand Nos. 73, 89, 187, 254, 272, 342, and 605 chuckled over the woes of superannuated coquettes. On the other hand No. 486 noted that “the fair sex reigns with greater tyranny over lovers than husbands.” And No. 605 saw without surprise that young beauties prefer admirers to husbands: “Women, who have been married some time, not having it in their heads to draw after them a numerous train of followers, find their satisfaction in the possession of one man's heart. I know very well, that ladies in their bloom desire to be excused in this particular.”
10 The distinction made in this passage (i.57-66) between the light coquette and the grave prude is in effect glossed by Tatler No. 126: “The prude and coquette (as different as they appear in their behaviour) are in reality the same kind of women: the motive of action in both is the affectation of pleasing men. They are sisters of the same blood and constitution, only one chooses a grave, the other a light, dress. The prude appears more virtuous, the coquette more vicious, than she really is. The distant behaviour of the prude tends to the same purpose as the advances of the coquette; and you have as little reason to fall into despair from the severity of the one, as to conceive hope from the familiarity of the latter.” The italics are mine.
11 Pope so arranges the device of having former coquettes superintend active coquettes as to soften his exposure of Belinda and indeed blend it with adornment. The device in other hands could be a fairly blunt means of enlarging on the workaday evils of coquettes. Thus Spectator No. 272 charges an ex-coquette with mischievously balking the honorable intentions of a fine young man toward a pretty young girl. This “creature,” the essay explains, “during the time of her bloom and beauty was so great a tyrant to her lovers, so overvalued herself and underrated all her pretenders, that they have deserted her to a man; and she knows no comfort but that common one to all in her condition, the pleasure of interrupting the amours of others … . Dear Sir, do not omit this true relation, nor think it too particular; for there are crowds of forlorn coquettes who intermingle themselves with other ladies, and contract familiarities out of malice, and with no other design but to blast the hopes of lovers, the expectation of parents, and the benevolence of kindred.” The relationship between Steele's ex-coquettes and Pope's deceased coquettes becomes all the more curious because the misguided belle of the essay is named Belinda.
12 Spectator No. 187 makes one of the distinctions: “The coquette is indeed one degree towards the jilt; but the heart of the former is bent upon admiring herself, and giving false hopes to her lovers; but the latter is not contented to be extremely amiable, but she must add to that advantage a certain delight in being a torment to others.” Tatler No. 107 makes the other distinction: “A coquette is a chaste jilt, and differs only from a common one, as a soldier, who is perfect in exercise, does from one that is actually in service.” But the distinctions were not universally recognized. For John Dennis interchangeably called Belinda a “jilt” and a “coquette”—The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. E. N. Hooker (Baltimore, 1943), ii, 335, 341.
13 Arthur O. Lovejoy, “‘Pride’ in Eighteenth-Century Thought,” Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore, 1948), p. 62.
14 Garth is quoted by Tillotson (p. 189) in the edifying note on iv.106.
15 Vv. 34-36. The poem, not much reprinted, is cited in The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. iii. The idea is also expressed, more cryptically, in the Essay on Man: “Nor Virtue, male or female, can we name, / But what will grow on Pride, or grow on Shame” (ii.193-194).
16 Complete Works, ed. P. P. Howe (London, 1930), v, 72.
17 The author of the couplet seems unknown. Are the lines simply a garbled variant of Halifax's couplet, to which Tillotson (following Wakefield) compares R.L. i.138: “Prayer-book, patch-boxes, sermon-notes and paint, / At once t'improve the sinner and the saint”? Prior's Hans Carvel puts the idea in another vein: “An untouch'd Bible grac'd her toilet: / No fear that thumb of hers should spoil it” (vv. 59-60).
18 Is it inconsistent of Pope, after dwelling on “the sacred rites of pride,” to present Belinda on the barge with “graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride” (ii.15-18)? It was the Spectator's opinion that consummate coquettes are masters of that “eloquence of beauty, an easy mien … one which can be on occasion easily affected” (No. 515). The Spectator perceived, too, that coquettes could affect sweet humility: “Albacinda has the skill as well as power of pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect humble. All good men should beware of the destroyer. She will speak to you like your sister, till she has you sure; but is the most vexatious of tyrants when you are so” (No. 144). Pope is, not acquitting, but rather once again accusing Belinda of pride when he says that her sweet and easy humility “might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide.” In his book belles certainly had.
19 ii.35-42. In the 1712 2-canto version of the poem the “trophies” are somewhat more fully catalogued: the offerings include a corset “busk” and a “fan” as well as a garter and a glove (i.55-58).
20 For similar collections see Spectator Nos. 30, 245; Guardian No. 151.
21 The periodical essays report regularly that women are especially attracted to dangerous rakes. See Spectator Nos. 156, 602; Guardian No. 45.
22 Belinda is here (iii.89) designated a virgin for the first time in the poem. She is so designated on three other occasions (iii.139-140; rv.9-10; v.82). In all but the last of these cases and in two other uses of the word (i.97; iv.4) the designation is significantly pointed.
23 For periodical accounts of the dishonor risked by gambling ladies see Guardian Nos. 120 and 174.
24 An unknown of rank higher than the Baron's would neatly correlate Belinda's conduct from ombre to coffee (iii.99-146) with Ariel's remarks on the gnomes' wards (i.79-86). But the odds are against an unknown. Though her heart of hearts is denied him in public at ombre, it might secretly be the Baron's later. When she protests his theft of her hair, she is not necessarily rejecting him from the heart; she is primarily defending on principle her prestige as a virgin and a coquette. After all she is not so fond of an unknown or indifferent to the Baron as to view all familiarities from the latter as odious (iv.175-176). Though she presents “one finger and a thumb” of her hand only for the unaffectionate purpose of snuffing out his manhood, she would not be unique if she combined the violence of angry pride with the reticence of love. When he speaks up from the floor, he seems sure that the man to lay her as low will be “some other” (v.97-98), but he has no way of guessing that she has already fallen in love, with him or anybody else. Standing far out from Belinda's otherwise faceless following, the Baron alone seems available for “lurking at her heart.”
25 v.141-150. In being covertly in love with one man without ceasing to flirt with many others, Belinda is hardly a pioneer woman in literature. For a convenient counterpart see the coquette (of Spectator No. 281) described in my next footnote.
26 All along Belinda seems to rate a beau—in Johnson's definition, “a man of dress”—as a man of worth. (In this estimate she resembles many girls in the periodical essays—e.g., Tatter No. 151; Spectator Nos. 15, 281, 311, 506; Guardian Nos. 34, 149.) She glows when she moves among or even dreams of fashion plates (i.23-24; ii.5-14). Up to a point, like Ariel's other wards, she finds safety in numbers of modish wigs, sword-knots, and coaches; and “beaus banish beaus” from her heart (i.99-102). In finally falling in love she shows her taste in men of distinction and Pope's taste in ironies. (For Pope's taste see i.90 and Moral Essay ii, vv. 247, 93-94, 265.)
There is in Spectator No. 281 a heart very similar to Belinda's, entered with an irony very similar to Pope's. In a previous essay (No. 275) Addison made a satiric report (much like Pope's at v.71-74, 115-116) of the imaginary “dissection of a beau's head.” No. 281, a sequel, is the report of the imaginary “dissection of a coquette's heart.” (Coming from the Rape, one sees that the subject here is a cadaver and that the speaker is explicit.) When first explored, the heart of the consummate coquette proved light, hollow, and impressively manproof, even though “the lady of this heart, when living, received the addresses of several who made love to her, and did not only give each of them encouragement, but made every one she conversed with believe that she regarded him with an eye of kindness.” But at last, concealed in the center of the heart, was discovered “a little figure … dressed in a very fantastic manner.” And “the little idol that was thus lodged in the very middle of the heart was the deceased beau” of the earlier dissection.
27 Johnson, Lives, iii, 101.
28 ii.30, 44; iii.165-170; iv.113-116, 139-140; v.108-111. 29 Tatler No. 88, Guardian No. 92.
30 v.105-106. For Othello's interpretation of Cassio's having the handkerchief, see Oth v.ii.213-215.
31 v.57-70. These lines are properly subsumed under Brooks's concession that “in some cases little more is implied than a teasing of the popular clichés” about dying for love (p. 93). Tillotson's notes to v.57-70 are very helpful. Two additional exhibits may be added—Tatler No. 110 and Spectator No. 377. The latter essay is an especially valuable analogue of Pope's ridicule of the clichés. To rid the language of “metaphorical deaths,” Addison asks the “dying” lover to note “that all his heavy complaints of wounds and deaths rise from some little affectations of coquettry, which are improved into charms by his own fond imagination.” In a jocose “Bill of Mortality” Addison illustrates how lovers may perish fancifully: “wounded by Belinda's scarlet stocking … smitten at the opera by the glance of an eye … killed by the tap of a fan on his left shoulder by Coquetilla … hurt by the brush of a whalebone petticoat … shot through the sticks of a fan … struck thro' the heart by a diamond necklace … slain by a blush from the Queen's Box … cut off in the twenty-first year of his age by a white-wash … slain by an arrow that flew out of a dimple in Belinda's left cheek … hurt from a pair of blue eyes … dispatch'd by a smile … murder'd by Melissa in her hair … drowned in a flood of tears.”
32 iv.103-110. See also The Fourth Satire of Dr. John Donne, Versifyed, vv. 258-259, unexpectedly evolved from Donne's own vv. 217-218.