Lecture Title: Beauty in Women and Poetry

"Beauty (unlike ugliness) cannot be explained." Roland Barthes, S/Z

Mrs. Arabella Fermor (note the cross in the portrait)

The question that begins The Rape of the Lock

Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,
Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? I: 7-10

 

The questions and paradoxes of Beauty

Questions

  • What is beauty?
  • Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?
    Is beauty in the object?
    What are the formal traits you expect when someone says "she/he is beautiful"?
  • How does beauty get its power (to act at a distance)?

The paradoxes surrounding beauty's power:

  • Beauty is culturally constructed but appears natural
  • Beauty attracts our gaze, but it also "hurts" the gazer

 

How is Belinda's Beauty rendered?
Canto II: ll. 1-18
Not with more Glories, in th' Ethereal Plain,
The Sun first rises o'er the purpled Main,
Than issuing forth, the Rival of his Beams
Launch'd on the Bosom of the Silver Thames.
Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone,
But ev'ry Eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white Breast a sparkling Cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.
Her lively Looks a sprightly Mind disclose,
Quick as her Eyes, and as unfix'd as those:
Favours to none, to all she Smiles extends,
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the Sun, her Eyes the Gazers strike,
And, like the Sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful Ease, and Sweetness void of Pride,
Might hide her Faults, if Belles had Faults to hide:
If to her share some Female Errors fall,
Look on her Face, and you'll forget 'em all.

 

Features of the verse form used in The Rape of the Lock: the heroic couplet

Example:
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends, ` _ ` _ / ` _ ` _ ` _
Oft' she rejects, but never once offends. ` _ ` _ / ` _ ` _ ` _

  1. pentameter (5 "feet," with two syllables to each foot)
  2. iambic rhythm : ` _ ` _
  3. end-rhyme
  4. divides with a pause, or cesura (/), at mid line;
  5. lends itself to parallelism and antithesis
  6. complete in itself, so it can become a aphorism, like this couplet from Clarissa's speech in Canto V: "Beauties in vain / their pretty eyes may roll `_ `_ / ` _ ` _ ` _ ;
    Charms strike the sight, / but merit wins the soul" _ _ `_/` _` _ `_

What effect is produced by the heroic couplet:

  • a certain kind of classical beauty: clear, vivid, concise and controlled
  • ideas stated within this form assume an aura of truth and inevitability
  • this artful and witty ornamentation of life casts a glow of beauty over the ordinary

 

Exalting Belinda and Critiquing Her : Canto II: 1-18
Not with more Glories, in th' Ethereal Plain*, (*sky)
The Sun first rises o'er the purpled Main*, (*ocean)
Than issuing forth, the Rival of his Beams
Launch'd on the Bosom of the Silver Thames*. (*the London river)
  • what's the controlling analogy?
  • what is the effect of the high poetic language applied to this action?
Fair Nymphs*, and well-drest Youths* around her shone, (*girls and guys)
But ev'ry Eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white Breast a sparkling Cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.
  • what does she do to the eyes of others?
  • what gives her transformative power over Jews and Infidels?
Her lively Looks a sprightly* Mind disclose, (*spirited)
Quick as her Eyes, and as unfix'd as those:
Favours to none, to all she Smiles extends,
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the Sun, her Eyes the Gazers strike,
And, like the Sun, they shine on all alike.
  • the language of radiation
  • catalogue of traits: breast + looks/eyes + no favors + smiles = woman of beauty
  • what sort of character type is Belinda?
Yet graceful Ease, and Sweetness void of Pride,
Might hide her Faults, if Belles had Faults to hide:
If to her share some Female Errors fall,
Look on her Face, and you'll forget 'em all.
  • how is the poet ironic?
  • where does the poet use exaggeration (hyperbole)?

 

The media and beauty:

  • Pope uses his beautiful poetry to render Belinda as a woman of beauty, but also critique that beauty. Thesis: Beauty is the creation of humans working with various media- (going backward in time) TV, film, photography, magazines, painting, and literature... and within literature, poetry.
  • In modern culture, photography is the privileged medium for rendering beauty: it orchestrates the spectator's approach, desire and exclusion. With Pope's representation of Belinda in mind, let's look at a modern construction of a woman as beautiful, "the case of Gwyneth Paltrow."
  • In The Rape of the Lock, Pope's heroic couplets and narrative plotting stage the beauty of Belinda; but the poem also offers a social critique of beauty. What, according to the poem, is the problem with the beauty system as Belinda uses it?

 

The response to beauty
What is the significant of Belinda's locks? How are they connected to her beauty?
This Nymph, to the Destruction of Mankind,
Nourish'd two Locks which graceful hung behind
In equal Curls, and well conspir'd to deck
With shining Ringlets the smooth Iv'ry Neck.
Love in these Labyrinths his Slaves detains,
And mighty Hearts are held in slender Chains.
With hairy sprindges* we the Birds betray, (noose traps)
Slight lines* of Hair surprise the Finny Prey, (fishing lines)
Fair Tresses Man's Imperial Race insnare,
And Beauty draws us with a single Hair. II: 19-28
What do you suppose motivates the Baron's plot? Why does it take this form?

Th' Advent'rous Baron the bright Locks admir'd,
He saw, he wish'd, and to the Prize aspir'd: (~Caesar: "I came, I saw, I conquered)
Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way,
By Force to ravish, or by Fraud betray;
For when Success a Lover's Toil attends,
Few ask, if Fraud or Force attain'd his Ends. II: 28-34

 

Backstage: beauty as an effect of art

the role of the Sylphs who guard her; (I:19-114)
the artistry of the dressing table (I:121-148)

Beardsly illustration:

Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;
The Fair each moment rises in her Charms,
Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,
And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;
Sees by Degrees a purer Blush arise,
And keener Lightnings quicken in her Eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

For next time: how does Pope correct Belinda and her beauty by inscribing it into a complex social world?