Pope wrote a mock-heroic for the purpose of satirizing or poking fun at a petty quarrel in the contemporary world in which he lived. The poem was inspired by an incident in which Lord Petre cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair without her permission, starting a feud between the two families.
By imitating the epic, heroic style of the Illiad, Pope highlighted how ridiculous the quarrel was and by implication, how pallid the...
Pope wrote a mock-heroic for the purpose of satirizing or poking fun at a petty quarrel in the contemporary world in which he lived. The poem was inspired by an incident in which Lord Petre cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair without her permission, starting a feud between the two families.
By imitating the epic, heroic style of the Illiad, Pope highlighted how ridiculous the quarrel was and by implication, how pallid the contemporary upper classes in contrast to the Greek heroes. The Greeks (and Trojans) had real problems. They fought an actual, bloody, bitter war in which many people, including many heroic people, were killed. Using the Trojan war as a point of contrast with a fight over taking a lock of hair showed how silly the lock-of-hair quarrel was. For example, Belinda, the character in the poem based on Arabella, "arms" herself with hair pins and powder for what is a mere drawing room "battle" as she primps to go out in company:
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-dout.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms
The mock-heroic here functions as satire: the exalted form, wedded to an inane plot about a lock of hair is what makes us laugh. It is similar to having a grand operatic moment with a huge chorus and cymbals and long high notes to advertise chewing gum: the satire is created by the slippage between form and substance.
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