Think about, and be prepared to discuss, five of these questions. Check any word you don't understand in a dictionary or glossary of literary terms.

The questions in bold will be addressed in lectures; the others in tutorials.

1. The Rape of the Lock if a mock epic or heroi-comical poem. As you read, watch for the ways in which Pope undercuts, deconstructs, and makes fun of epic conventions. Be prepared to discuss an element of the poem you thought played particularly cleverly on epic conventions.
   
   
2. Read the definition of "satire" in your Norton Anthology, and be prepared to discuss The Rape in those terms. (Your responses to many of the following questions will depend on your understanding of this term.) From your reading of the background material in the Norton, think about political and historical reasons that might lie behind satire's popularity as a genre at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
   
   
3. Does The Rape of the Lock adopt an essentially positive or negative attitude towards Belinda's social milieu? Do you think Pope's critique of Belinda and her leisured, frivolous life of appearances is designed to expose and so correct a "mock world", or does he hold them up for our pleasure and admiration? Support your opinion with textual evidence.
   
   
4. The Rape of the Lock is full of material objects, and some of its most brilliant sections may be read as catalogues of the fruits of imperialism, and the new wealth of the English capitalistic middle class. Find three commodities in the poem that point to the eighteenth-century rise of imperialism.
   
   
5. The Rape of the Lock distinguishes between four types of women, each of whom when she dies becomes either a Sylph, a Gnome, a Nymph or a Salamander. What are the different characteristics of these women and the creatures they become? What type is Belinda?
   
   
6. What does Pope mean when he says that "old impertinence [is expelled] by new" (Rape, line 94)?
   
   
7. Belinda is obviously very beautiful. What other qualities make us admire her? What are her faults (see Canto 2, lines 16-18)?
   
   
8. Which reading do you prefer: Bibles or bibelots, at Rape, Canto 1, line 138?