Milton Vs Pope
A Crime of Fate
In Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve commit the first sin, and from this point on, all other sins are mere copies of this. Alexander Pope uses this to his benefit when he depicts the crime in The Rape of the Lock. By alluding to Milton’s work, Pope is able to comically refer to the cutting of a lock of hair as a tragic and epic event. In doing this, he paradoxically assumes that the crime is not one of personal fault, but one fated to happen by God, just as in Paradise Lost.
“What dire offence from amorous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things,” (Pope, ll. 1-2). These first lines of The Rape of the Lock immediately try to make light of the entire situation. The reader has yet to learn what the “dire offence” is, but already likens it to the Adam and Eve’s “trivial” mistake, eating from the tree of knowledge, which forced them out of Paradise. It will take a further reading of the poem to......
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Milton Vs Pope
Milton Vs Pope. A Crime of Fate In Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve commit the first
sin, and from this point on, all other sins are mere copies of this. ...
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