GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Identification of British Poetry 1660–1925
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Example Question #11 : Identification Of British Poetry 1660–1925
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?
What is the subject of this poem?
The undue importance that British society places on female virtue
The execution of a political prisoner in the Tower of London
A notorious London brothel and the life of a reformed prostitute
An illicit haircut and a rift between two aristocratic families
A royal intrigue between Henry VIII and an imagined woman
An illicit haircut and a rift between two aristocratic families
This poem is based on the true story of two noble families in England during Pope’s lifetime. The inspiration for the poem occurred when a male suitor of one family cut off a lock of hair from a woman (named Belinda in the poem) of the other family without her permission. Pope uses his extensive powers of hyperbole, the mock-heroic form, and classical allusions to satirize this incident and blow it entirely out of proportion.
Passage adapted from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.1-12 (1712; ed. 1906)
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