How The Rape of the Lock drew on Paradise Lost
A documented line of influence: Alexander Pope demonstrably engaged John Milton’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Paradise Lost
John Milton · 1667
RenaissanceThe influenced
The Rape of the Lock
Alexander Pope · 1714
PoetsRelevance
7/10
On The Rape of the Lock’s page
- The Rape of the Lock is a wink at Paradise Lost — Pope dresses a trifling society squabble in Milton's cosmic apparatus
- Know Milton first and the jokes land: Belinda's dream answers Eve's, Umbriel's descent to the Cave of Spleen replays Satan's journey to the new world
- Pope's supernatural machinery — the sylphs, the omens — is Milton's epic burlesqued to the scale of a curl of hair
On Paradise Lost’s page
- Milton's epic machinery, shrunk to the scale of a hairpin
- Pope built his mock-epic by burlesquing Paradise Lost: Belinda's premonitory morning dream echoes Eve's dream, and Umbriel's flight to the Cave of Spleen mirrors Satan's journey to the new world
- The sylph whispering at Belinda's ear is Satan tempting Eve, miniaturized for a drawing-room — the grander you take Milton, the funnier Pope gets