Role of Supernatural Machinery in “The Rape of

the Lock

Pope clarifies that “Machinery” is a term created by the critics to imply the part which
divinities, plot, or evil spirits play in a ballad. He happens to say that the machinery in
this sonnet is focused around the Rosicrucian precept of spirits in which the four
components are occupied by sylphs, nymphs, gnomes and salamanders. The sylphs,
whose home is circulating everywhere, are the best-molded animals.

“The Rape of the Lock” was made up of just four cantos, holding the principle episodes
of the round of cards, cutting of the lock and following fight therewith. This clever piece
was intended to realize a blissful compromise between the two groups of the Fermors
and Petres. This adaptation, on the other hand, was never distributed and it had not yet
tackled the state of a mock-epic. It was intended to be perused by a chose number of
individuals related or close with the two families.

Pope saw the likelihood of growing it into a mock-brave poem.this was carried out by
including into the collection of the lyric the extraordinary animals like the sylphs and
elves who appear to be the controlling drive behind the focal activity of the sonnet.

Source Of Pope’s Machinery

Pope took the name of Ariel from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, and the thought of the
sylphs from a French book, “Le Comts do Gabalis”, which gives a record of the
Rosicrucian mythology of spirits. As indicated by this mythology, the four components
are occupied by spirits, which are called sylphs (air), dwarves (earth), sprites (water),
and lizards (fire). Two of these sorts sylphs and dwarves – are presents by Pope in “The
Rape of the Lock”.
These Ariel spirits were minor, light creatures, which would precisely suit his mock-
chivalrous ballad and these are as simulated as the general public depicted in the lyric.

The Function of Machinery

Ariel, who watches Belinda, appoints diverse capacities to the spirits. One was
Belinda’s fan, an alternate was to deal with her ear-rings, the third was to care for her
watch, and fourth was to monitor her most loved lock. Ariel cautioned the pigmy band of
spirits against carelessness in their obligations. Serious discipline was to be
recompensed to the individuals who fizzled in the release of their obligations, The
disciplines with which the delinquents were undermined were: (I) to be quiet down in
little flasks, (II) to be punctured through with pins, (III) or to be stuck up in gums and
pomades.In spite of all the cautious vigilance of Ariel and the sylphs, the lock of
Belinda’s hair is assaulted. The spirits don’t at all impact the activity.

So it is the machinery which empowers Pope, in different courses, to make the mock

epic impact. All the epic writers like Homer, Virgil, Tasso and Milton made utilization of
the machinery, and it was in the wellness of things that Pope ought to additionally spoof
it in his mock-epic.