A Modest Rape The Eighteenth Century And The Power Of...

Linda Rector May 14, 2015 ENG 215 Final Research Paper A Modest Rape: The Eighteenth Century and the Power of Satire During the restoration in the eighteenth century, wit and reason came to the forefront of literary works. Keen intellect and sharp observation exposed moral corruption of the neoclassic British society through the use of satiric literature. Although they placed importance on the ideals of order, knowledge, and rational, there was an underlying obsession with maintaining a faà §ade of moral and political supremacy. British satirists, such as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, aimed to expose their society’s shortcomings, and to ridicule centuries of conditioned thought. Although Pope and Swift used different mediums to present their satire, they both focused on the ludicrous aspects of British nobility, and found ways to point out their morally corrupt standards of living. In Alexander Pope’s poem The Rape of the Lock, he criticizes the fallacies of vanity in the upper class, and how socialites used religion as a commodity. The story was actually based on an incident among Pope’s friends in which Robert, Lord Petre cut off a lock of Aranella Fermor’s hair, which caused a dispute among their families (Olsen 218). A mutual friend named John Caryll convinced Pope to write the poem as an attempt to mend the broken bond between the two families. The plan worked, and everyone was content until Pope decided to publish the poem for fear of plagiarism (Olsen 219).Show MoreRelatedJohn Cleland s Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure Essay6388 Words   |  26 Pageswhat may be described as the stereotypic prostitute. The repeated portraits of fair-skinned Englishwomen who are incapable of pregnancy, immune to disease, and â€Å"sexually responsive far beyond the call of . . . professional duty† become â€Å"the eighteenth‑century ve rsion of the centerfold† (Markley 348), verbally airbrushing both the prostitutes’ looks and the harsh realities of their working conditions in order to stimulate a male readership that has a libidinal investment in the novel’s sexual fantasy