ABSTRACT
The Rape of the Lock reflects critically on the passions of its youthful protagonist – whose emotions are palpable. In his treatment of these, Pope was probably drawing on Descartes’ Passions de l’Ame, which attempts to account for emotional expression as the ultimate product of mental reception. According to Descartes, the mind (or soul) – being detached from the body – cannot ‘feel’. Impressions reach it from the senses via the movements of vaporous ‘animal spirits’. These impressions are conveyed through the body by relays of the same, which activate such physiological symptoms as blushing, trembling and weeping. The spirits then move backwards towards the head and ultimately the soul, located as Descartes thought in the pineal gland – communicating the symptoms that it prompted in the first place. The soul thus, as we say, ‘feels’. Umbriel, who travels to the Cave of Spleen in order to gather the physiological wherewithal of the hysterical reactions of Belinda and Thalestris to the ‘rape’, which he eventually releases over their heads, projects the circular and materially-oriented action of Descartes’ all-important animal spirits. Partly through Clarissa, Pope echoes Descartes’ conviction that the mind is capable of modifying the passions and maintaining tranquillity.
