A Social Satire or a Celebration?: The Ideological Working of Politeness in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock

Abstract

This study attempts to examine how and why Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock both endorses and criticizes the society of Hampton Court by focusing on the notion of politeness in eighteenth-century England. In reading this poem, many critics have concentrated on its mock-heroic style, thus interpreting it as a satire of contemporary society represented by Hampton Court. But the poetic tone and narrative, in which this poem approvingly addresses the socio-cultural practices of Hampton Court's society, do not fit into this satirical reading, since most descriptions of these practices evade a clear value judgment of moral, political issues on which a working satire should depend. Drawing upon this critical problem immanent in a satirical reading of this poem, this study argues that the operational principle of Hampton Court's society, which underscores refined manners and material pursuits rather than moral, political correctness, derives from the notion of politeness that newly appeared in gradually commercialized societies of eighteenth-century England. The notion of politeness, which reflected the ethos of the growing merchant class and thus assumed a dominant position in eighteenth -century English society, functions as an ideological ground of The Rape of the Lock; that is, through the ideological working of politeness, cultural refinement and frivolous material pursuits of trivial things can be foregrounded in this poem without mutual contradiction and moral, political value judgment. Although the notion of politeness as a working ideology renders the world of this poem both amoral and apolitical, its vivid and ironical descriptions of social injustices complicate the way in which Pope's authorial position is manifested. And from this complicated authorial position, this poem provides abundant ambivalence for the reader. On this point, this study argues that this poem's ambivalence between satire and celebration attests to the extent to which eighteenth-century satirical writings were embedded in contemporary civil societies based on the notion of politeness, and thus they became both an accomplice and a debunker of these societies.