POETRY : THE MOCK-EPIC
The mock-epic is a narrative poem in which the conventions of the regular epic are employed in connection with trivial things. Thus it becomes a parody. A ridiculous or mock effect is created by using the grand, eloquent style of narration and other conventions for a theme essentially insignificant.
There was a classical pattern to this kind of epic in the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice', a Greek parody of Homer's Iliad. The finest example of a mock-heroic poem in English is Pope's 'Rape of Lock' published in 1712. Swift's 'Battle of the Books', though in prose, also has some traits of a mock-epic.
'The Rape of the Lock' celebrates an absurdly trivial theme - the theft of a lock of hair from a girl's head by her lover - in an epic manner. The jest lies in treating such a ridiculous theme in a sublime manner. Once Lord Petre took one hair from the head of the beautiful Arabella Fermor and this led to a quarrel between the two families. Pope wrote a mock-heroic poem on this theme to reconcile the two families.
The title of the poem is suggested by the story of Iliad - the rape of Helen. Pope uses all conventions of the epic. Though 'slight is the subject', the poet enlarges upon it with philosophical seriousness. As in a serious epic, Pope invokes the Muse at the beginning. He introduces the supernatural elements as in all serious epics. He introduces the four orders of spirits - sylphs, gnomes, nymphs and salamanders. The Baron's attempt to get one of the locks of Belinda, the heroine, is described with a seriousness suitable to the narration of the deeds of the mythological hero. The speeches of the spirits remind one of the speeches of Satan in Paradise Lost. The toilet scene is presented as a mystic, religious rite in classical fashion. Homeric scenes of battles are imitated in the card game of ombre and in the mock fight between the lords and the ladies. The scene of cutting the lock from Belinda's head is delicately described with mock seriousness. Finally the lock disappears mysteriously into the lunar sphere to become a star. The poem is full of fanciful concepts, expressions and images that remind the reader of a regular epic. The poet uses irony, satire, understatements, anticlimax, balanced sentences and similar devices to emphasize the mocking tone without spoiling the epic structure. As Hazlitt observed, in the Rape of the Lock 'the little is made great and the great little'. The poem is the perfection of the mock-heroic.
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