ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

AGES ERA PERIOD

RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
What mock epic begins: “What dire offence from am’rous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things”?
A
Dryden’s “Mac Flecknoe”
B
Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”
C
Pope’s “The Dunciad”
D
Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel”
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -As mentioned before, The Rape of the Lock is a mock-epic which is divided into five cantos. The entire poem is told in heroic couplets, which are two lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme (What dire offence from am’rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things).

Detailed explanation-2: -What dire Offence from am’rous Causes springs, What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things, [I.1-2] Pope suggests that they are taking a trivial incident too seriously, displaying an exaggerated sense of their own importance.

Detailed explanation-3: -Rather, it is the Baron’s love for Belinda’s icon (her hair) that is the poem’s amorous subject. Equally, the poem’s ‘mighty Contests’ come about from the theft of Belinda’s hair, not, for example, from the offended honour of Achilles or Menelaus.

Detailed explanation-4: -“What mighty contests rise from trivial things.”-Alexander Pope, born on this day in 1688.

Detailed explanation-5: -mock-epic, also called mock-heroic, form of satire that adapts the elevated heroic style of the classical epic poem to a trivial subject.

There is 1 question to complete.