Othello By Shakespeare - A Racist Play?

There are lots of things to suggest this is a racist Play. Racism don't actually dominates the play, even though it has a racist theme. There is a romantic union between black and white which gets destroyed because most people think the relationship is wrong. At the time the play was written, 1604, even the Queen of England was racist so there must have been a strong hatred of blacks around that time. 

Most racist comments in the play are said by people that are angry or upset. For example, when Emilia found out that Othellohad killed Desdemona she was extremely mad and she called Othello a “Blacker devil”, this was the only time in the play that she had said anything racist about Othello. The main characters that have racist attitudes are Iago, Brabantio, Roderigo and Emilia, with the hatred of Othello as the basis for their racist actions and comments towards him. Iago is the most racist character in the book as he has it in for Othello right from the start. What sparks off Iago's hate towards him is the fact that when Othello chose his lieutenant , it was Cassio who was chosen instead of Iago. What made Iago angry was the fact thatCassio had no experience in war when he did and Cassio was chosen instead of him. Iago does not say anything racist to Othello's face but he has a lot to say against him behind his back. He schemes to destroy Othello and anything in his way including Cassio and Desdemona. The first time we hear one of his racist comments is when he's talking to Brabantio about Othello and Desdemona,

“Even now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe”.

Iago says this to try and turn Brabantio against Othello. Iago uses racist comments all the way through the play, as he tries to turn people against Othello, for example calling him a “Barbary Horse”. He never says anything racist to Othello's face because in his plot he had to be his best friend, so as not to make him suspicious that Iago was causing all the trouble for him. Iago is jealous of Othello for many reasons, one being that Othello has higher ranking in the army than him, and also he has a good marriage with Desdemona which Iago does not have himself with Emilia. These are the main causes of his hatred for Othello and the reason he adopts such a racist attitude. 

Roderigo is another one of the racist characters in the play, being so right from the start. He is Iago's accomplice and will doanything that Iago wants him to. I think he does this because of the way Iago can twist a situation to make it sound as if Roderigo would get something good from it but in the end he doesn't. 

One of the racist names he calls Othello behind his back is “Thick-lips”. He hates Othello because he's jealous of him as healso loves Desdemona but cannot have her. I don't think he views Othello in a very bad, racist way but uses the racism against Othello because he's jealous of him. Neither Roderigo or Iago would say anything racist to Othello's face as he is the general of the army. 

Brabantio is also a racist character, and is enraged when he finds out that his daughter, Desdemona, has been seeing “the moor”behind his back. Brabantio is so mad he sends out his guards to catch Othello and put him in prison. Brabantio views Othello as a foul and dirty no good black, I think this racist view of his is because he's angry when he finds out that his daughter has been seeing this “moor”. Unlike Iago and Roderigo, Brabantio will openly make racist comments about Othello to his face such as,

“lascivious moor”, 

“Wheeling stranger”.

Brabantio can do this because he is the Senator of Venice and is higher in rank than Othello. 

The other character who is racist towards Othello is Emilia, the lady in waiting to Desdemona. Emilia is disgusted with Othello when she finds out that Othello had killed Desdemona this is the time she gets a chance to express her feelings about Othello, 

“O, the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!” 

Although this is the only time she says what she thinks of him, I think that she was racist towards Othello all through the play and did not approve of his relationship with Desdemona but just could not show it because she would get in trouble with her “lord”. 

Because Shakespeare wrote a play about a black and white union, which was later destroyed, I think it shows that he's not racist. I think he feels that the union between the two is right, but the relationship would never survive in a racist community at that time. He portrayed the union between Othello and Desdemona as a good thing, and the people who destroyed it, mainly Iago and Roderigo as evil. This shows once again that he approves of a black and white relationship and therefore was not racist himself.

Once before Shakespeare wrote a sonnet about his mistress which says, for example,

“If snow be white, why then her breast be dun”

He writes about his mistress being black when other poets of that time wrote about how their mistresses were white. The other poets were the racist ones, they girlfriends were always white and perfect, Shakespeare wrote about how his mistresses is black and not very beautiful. Although the play has a strong racist theme against blacks but on the whole the play is not racist.

Othello By Shakespeare : Note on "The Motive-Hunting of Motiveless Malignity"

The famous phrase, "The motive-hunting of motiveless Malignity," occurs in a note Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in his copy of Shakespeare, as he was preparing a series of lectures delivered in the winter of 1818-1819. The note concerns the end of Act 1, Scene 3 of Othello in which Iago takes leave of Roderigo, saying, 

"Go to, farewell. Put money enough in your purse,"

and then delivers the soliloquy beginning 

"Thus do I ever make my fool my purse."

Here is Coleridge's note: 

The triumph! again, put money after the effect has been fully produced.--The last Speech, the motive-hunting of motiveless Malignity--how awful! In itself fiendish--while yet he was allowed to bear the divine image, too fiendish for his own steady View.--A being next to Devil--only not quite Devil--& this Shakespeare has attempted-- executed--without disgust, without Scandal!-- (Lectures 1808-1819 On Literature 2: 315) 

Coleridge's phrase is often taken to mean that Iago has no real motive and does evil only because he is evil. This is not far from what Coleridge meant, but he almost certainly wasn't using the word “motive" in the same way as it's now used. We use it to mean “an emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement to action" ("Motive"). This definition equates “motive" and “impulse"; Coleridge, however, thought the two quite different. He makes this distinction in an entry he wrote for Omniana, a collection of sayings assembled by his friend Robert Southey and published in 1812. Here is what Coleridge wrote:

119. Motives and Impulses.

“It is a matter of infinite difficulty, but fortunately of comparative indifference, to determine what a man's motive may have been for this or that particular action. Rather seek to learn what his objects in general are!--What does he habitually wish? habitually pursue?--and thence deduce his impulses, which are commonly the true efficient causes of men's conduct; and without which the motive itself would not have become a motive. Let a haunch of venison represent the motive, and the keen appetite of health and exercise the impulse: then place the same or some more favourite dish, before the same man, sick, dyspeptic, and stomach-worn, and we may then weigh the comparative influences of motives and impulses. Without the perception of this truth, it is impossible to understand the character of Iago, who is represented as now assigning one, and then another, and again a third, motive for his conduct, all alike the mere fictions of his own restless nature, distempered by a keen sense of his intellectual superiority, and haunted by the love of exerting power, on those especially who are his superiors in practical and moral excellence. Yet how many among our modern critics have attributed to the profound author this, the appropriate inconsistency of the character itself!” (Shorter Works and Fragments 1: 310) 

Thus Coleridge asserts that Iago's motives (in our sense) were his “keen sense of his intellectual superiority" and his “love of exerting power." And so Iago's malignity is “motiveless" because his motives (in Coleridge's sense) -- being passed over for promotion, his suspicion that Othello is having an affair with his wife, and the suspicion that Cassio is also having an affair with Emilia -- are merely rationalizations.

Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wild : Major Themes

Manners and Sincerity

The major target of Wilde's scathing social criticism is the hypocrisy that society creates. Frequently in Victorian society, its participants comported themselves in overly sincere, polite ways while they harbored conversely manipulative, cruel attitudes. Wilde exposes this divide in scenes such as when Gwendolen and Cecily behave themselves in front of the servants or when Lady Bracknell warms to Cecily upon discovering she is rich. However, the play truly pivots around the word "earnest." Both women want to marry someone named "Ernest," as the name inspires "absolute confidence"; in other words, the name implies that its bearer truly is earnest, honest, and responsible. However, Jack and Algernon have lied about their names, so they are not really "earnest." But it also turns out that (at least in Jack's case) he was inadvertently telling the truth. The rapid flip-flopping of truths and lies, of earnestness and duplicity, shows how truly muddled the Victorian values of honesty and responsibility were. 

Dual Identities

As a subset of the sincerity theme (see above), Wilde explores in depth what it means to have a dual identity in Victorian society. This duality is most apparent in Algernon and Jack's "Bunburying" (their creation of an alter ego to allow them to evade responsibility). Wilde hints that Bunburying may cover for homosexual liaisons, or at the very least serve as an escape from oppressive marriages. Other characters also create alternate identities. For example, Cecily writes correspondence between herself and Ernest before she has ever met him. Unlike real men, who are free to come and go as they please, she is able to control this version of Ernest. Finally, the fact that Jack has been unwittingly leading a life of dual identities shows that our alter egos are not as far from our "real" identities as we would think. 

Critique of Marriage as a Social Tool

Wilde's most concrete critique in the play is of the manipulative desires revolving around marriage. Gwendolen and Cecily are interested in their mates, it appears, only because they have disreputable backgrounds (Gwendolen is pleased to learn that Jack was an orphan; Cecily is excited by Algernon's "wicked" reputation). Their shared desire to marry someone named Ernest demonstrates that their romantic dreams hinge upon titles, not character. The men are not much less shallow-Algernon proposes to the young, pretty Cecily within minutes of meeting her. Only Jack seems to have earnest romantic desires, though why he would love the self-absorbed Gwendolen is questionable. However, the sordidness of the lovers' ulterior motives is dwarfed by the priorities of Lady Bracknell, who epitomizes the Victorian tendency to view marriage as a financial arrangement. She does not consent to Gwendolen's marriage to Jack on the basis of his being an orphan, and she snubs Cecily until she discovers she has a large personal fortune. 

Idleness of the Leisure Class and the Aesthete

Wilde good-naturedly exposes the empty, trivial lives of the aristocracy-good-naturedly, for Wilde also indulged in this type of lifestyle. Algernon is a hedonist who likes nothing better than to eat, gamble, and gossip without consequence. Wilde has described the play as about characters who trivialize serious matters and solemnize trivial matters; Algernon seems more worried by the absence of cucumber sandwiches (which he ate) than by the serious class conflicts that he quickly smoothes over with wit. But Wilde has a more serious intent: he subscribes to the late-19th-century philosophy of aestheticism, espoused by Walter Pater, which argues for the necessity of art's primary relationship with beauty, not with reality. Art should not mirror reality; rather, Wilde has said, it should be "useless" (in the sense of not serving a social purpose; it is useful for our appreciation of beauty). Therefore, Algernon's idleness is not merely laziness, but the product of someone who has cultivated an esteemed sense of aesthetic uselessness. 

Farce

The most famous aspect of Oscar Wilde's literature is his epigrams: compact, witty maxims that often expose the absurdities of society using paradox. Frequently, he takes an established cliché and alters it to make its illogic somehow more logical ("in married life three is company and two is none"). While these zingers serve as sophisticated critiques of society, Wilde also employs several comic tools of "low" comedy, specifically those of farce. He echoes dialogue and actions, uses comic reversals, and explodes a fast-paced, absurd ending whose implausibility we overlook because it is so ridiculous. This tone of wit and farce is distinctively Wildean; only someone so skilled in both genres could combine them so successfully.

Difference Between Epic and Mock Epic

The Epic

The epic is generally defined: A long narrative poem on a great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race. The traditional epics were shaped by a literary artist from historical and legendary materials which had developed in the oral traditions of his nation during a period of expansion and warfare (Beowulf, The Odyssey, The Iliad).

“An extended narrative poem,

usually simple in construction, but grand in scope,

exalted in style, and heroic in theme, often giving expression to the ideals of a nation or race. ”

Epic Conventions, or characteristics common to both types include:

1. The hero is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance, usually the ideal man of his culture. He often has superhuman or divine traits. He has an imposing physical stature and is greater in all ways than the common man.

2. The setting is vast in scope. It covers great geographical distances, perhaps even visiting the underworld, other wortlds, other times.

3. The action consists of deeds of valor or superhuman courage (especially in battle).

4. Supernatural forces interest themselves in the action and intervene at times. The intervention of the gods is called "machinery."

5. The style of writing is elevated, even ceremonial.

6. Additional conventions: certainly all are not always present)

1. Opens by stating the theme of the epic.

2. Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus. The poet prays to the muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero.

3. Narrative opens in media res. This means "in the middle of things," usually with the hero at his lowest point. Earlier portions of the story appear later as flashbacks.

4. Catalogs and geneaologies are given. These long lists of objects, places, and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal context. Oftentimes, the poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of audience members.

5. Main characters give extended formal speeches.

6. Use of the epic simile. A standard simile is a comparison using "like" or "as." An epic or Homeric simile is a more involved, ornate comparison, extended in great detail.

7. Heavy use of repetition and stock phrases. The poet repeats passages that consist of several lines in various sections of the epic and uses homeric epithets, short, recurrent phrases used to describe people, places, or things. Both made the poem easier to memorize. 

Aristotle described six characteristics: "fable, action, characters, sentiments, diction, and meter." Since then, critics have used these criteria to describe two kinds of epics:

Epic

* fable and action are grave and solemn

* characterrs are the highest

* sentiments and diction preserve the sublime

* verse 

Comic Epic

* fable and action are light and ridiculous

* characters are inferior

* sentiments and diction preserve the ludicrous

* verse 

When the first novelists began writing what were later called novels, they thought they were writing "prose epics." Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Ruichardson attempted the comic form. Yet what they wrote were true novels, not epics, and there are differences.

The Epic

* oral and poetic language

* public and remarkable deeds

* historical or legendary hero

* collective enterprise

* generalized setting in time and place

* rigid traditional structure according to previous patterns 

Comic Epic

* written and referential language

* private, daily experiencer

* humanized "ordinary" characters

* individual enterprise

* particularized setting in time and place

* structure determined by actions of character within a moral pattern 

Sidelight: Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Epic Poetry." Based on the conventions he established, classical epics began with an argument and an invocation to a guiding spirit, then started the narrative in medias res. In modern use, the term, "epic," is generally applied to all lengthy works on matters of great importance. The Rhapsodoi, professional reciters, memorized his work and passed it on by word of mouth as part of an oral tradition.

Rape of The Lock By Pope : As Mock Epic

An epic, according to Aristotle, is the tragedy of a conspicuous person, who is involved in adventurous eventsand meets a tragic fallon account of some error of judgment i.e. hamartiawhich throws him from prosperity into adversity,however, his death is not essential. So, the subject matter of an epic is grandand that’s why it is written in bombastic languagen heroic couplet. Its style, too, is grand.

A mock-epic is a satire of an epic. It shows us that even a trivial subject can also be treated on epical scale. The subject of “The Rape of the Lock” is trivial – a love dispute between a lady ad a gentleman. Lord Byron proposes Belinda who rejects his proposal. Baron cuts one of her beautiful looks. This trivial theme has been given epical treatment as if it were some grave event of paramount importance.

The style of the poet is mock-heroic. He employs bombastic and showy diction for thoughts and ideas which are not really grand – pompous expression for low action – for example, the game of Ombre had been described as a war of nerves, the table has been termed as the battlefield, the dispersed cards have been dubbed as routed army etc.

Similarly, the process of Belinda’s make –up has been termed s adoration and the sacred rites of priced. Belinda is called ‘inferior priestess’ and her toilet an ‘alter’ etc.

The poet has employed the epical method to heighten the effect i.e. the great has been made look small and vice versa. The introduction of the aerial machinery is used for heightening of effect. Belinda is an ordinary fashionable girl, but she has been shown being protected by thousands of spirits. The trivial game of Ombre has been compared with a grave war of nerves. The ordinary flight between the supports of Belinda and those of Peter has been compared with the fatal war between gods and goddesses and their hair pins, fans, etc. with which they fought have been termed as ‘deadly weapons’, spears, etc. The grief of Belinda at the loss of the lock has been compared with the shock at the death of a husband or a lapdog or at the breakage of a China vessel. Thus the poet raises a lapdog to the level of a husband or reduces a husband to the level of a lapdog.

The poet has also employed epical and heroic images, which is one of the prerequisites of a mock-epic. For example, Belinda has been named as ‘the fairest of mortals’, the ‘bright fair’. The cards have been called ‘parti-coloured troops’. The pair of scissors has been termed as a two-edged ‘weapon’, ‘little engine’, ‘forfex’, ‘fatal engine’, etc.

Belinda’s dreams have been called mystic vision. The air-pins have been compared with ‘deadly weapons’ and ‘deadly spears’ etc. Belinda’s eyes have been dubbed as ‘fair suns’.

Humour is one of the prerequisites of a mock-epic and the poem is full of humour and its humour is pleasing as compared to Swift’s humour.

Moral is an essential part of a mock-epic. This poem is full of morals from the beginning till the end. However, the speeches of Belinda and Clarissa are especially soaked in moral. Belinda repents that she would have been ten times happier if she had indulged herself in the pursuits of the fashionable circle. So, the more a woman exposes herself and her beauty, the more her chastity is in danger.

Rape Of The Lock By Pope: Social Satire

As Shakespeare is the poet of man, Pope is a poet of society. “The Rape of the Lock” is a social document because it mirrors contemporary society and contains a social satire, too. Pope paints about England in 18th century.
The whole panorama of “The Rape of the Lock” revolves around the false standard of 18th century. Pope satirizes the young girls and boys, aristocratic women and men, their free time activities, nature of husbands and wives, the professional judges and politicians of the day.
Pope clearly depicts the absurdities and the frivolities of the fashionable circle of the 18th century England. The world of Belinda – the world of fashion is a trivial world. The whole life of Belinda is confined to sleeping, make-up, enjoyment and alluring the lords. There are no transcendental elements in her life. This life is marked by ill-nature, affection, mischievousness, coquetry, yielding and submissive nature, fierce and unruly nature, infidelity, cheapness, meanness, trivialities and frivolities etc. Belinda represents all the fashion struck women, busy in such stupidities.
The gallants of the time have not been spared by Pope. Baron not only represents Peter but also typifies the aristocratic gallants of the age.
Pope satirizes man’s nature that is always weak at beauty. Men sacrifice everything at the altar of beauty and even the most intelligent man behaves foolishly when he fall a victim to beauty.
In order to make his satire sharper and all the more effective, Pope introduces the aerial machinery, which facilitates the satire. Through this weapon, the poet throws in contrast the weaknesses of the fashionablewomen of that age. He satirizes women who are interested in fashionable life and its pursuits and who go on exercising their evil influence even after their death. For the sake of worldly grandeur, they can bid farewell even to their chastity and honour. He satirizes women of fiery, coquettish mischievous and yielding nature and gives them different names. It also provides the poet with an opportunity to satirize the class consciousness of women.
All the women and beaus gather at the place where they exchange talks on trivial things e.g. visits, balls, films, motions, looks, eyes, etc. and “at every word, a reputation dies”.

“A beau and witling perished in the throng,
One died in metaphor, and one in song.”

Man’s favourite activity is to take suffered women to play with fan. There is singing, dancing, laughing, ogling, etc. and nothing else. Women are busy alluring the dukes and lords. The poet reflects the hollowness of men in the character of Sir Plume who is coward, foolish and senseless, lacking courage. Women are on the whole irresolute and they have made toyshops of their hearts. They have even illicit relations with the beaus. Women are meant only for the entertainment of men, who play toy with them.
Pope also satirizes of the husbands and wives of the day. Husbands always suspect their wives. They think that their wives have been merry making with their lovers.
Wives are also not virtuous at all. They love their lap-dogs more than their husbands. And the death of husbands is not more shocking than the death of a lap dog or the breakage of a china vessel.
So through the medium of satire, Pope paints a picture of 18th century English society. His satire is didactic and impersonal. It is not inflicted against any person or individual, rather against the society and that, too, owing to some moral faults. He is dissatisfied with the society around which he wants to reform. The society he pictured is the aristocratic group of 18th century fashionable English society. But thee are several allied subjects, too, on which he inflicts his satire. For example, he satirized the judged who make hasty decisions.

“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine”

He also satirized those friends whose friendship is but lust, those politicianswho do not have a deeper insight and cannot see beyond the shows and take steps just for their own interests and ends etc.
To sum up, the poem is a reflection of this artificial and hollow life, painted with a humorous and delicate satire. Pope’s satire is intellectual and full of wit and epigram. Is picture of Addison as Atticus though unjust and prompted by malice, is a brilliant piece of satire.

“As an intellectual observer and describer of personal weakness, Pope stands by himself in English verse.”

Rape Of The Lock By Pope :Supernatural Machinery

Pope explains that “machinery” is a term invented by the critics to signify the part which deities, angles, or demons play in a poem. He goes on to say that the machinery in this poem is based on the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits in which the four elements are inhabited by sylphs, nymphs, gnomes and salamanders. The sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures.
Pope tells us that beautiful women return, after their death, to the elements from which they were derived. Termagants or violent tempered women become salamanders or spirit of the fire. Women of gentle and pleasing disposition pass into nymphs or water-spirits. Prudish women become gnomes or earth spirits. Light-hearted coquettes are changed into sylphs or spirits of the air.
The first and the foremost activity of the sylphs is the protection of fair and chaste ladies who reject the male sex. They guard and save the chastity of maidens and save them from falling victims to the “treacherous friends”. The gnomes or earth spirits fill the minds of proud maidens with foolish ideas of being married to lords and peers. These gnomes teach young coquette to ogle and pretend blushing at the sight of fashionable young men. However, sylphs safely guide the maidens through all dangers. Whenever a maiden is about to yield to a particular young man, more attractive and tempting man appears on the scene and the fashionable maiden at once transfers to the new comer. This may be called levity or fickleness in women but it is all contrived by the sylphs.

In most of the famous epics, “machinery” consists in supernatural beings like gods and angles who play a vital role in the poems thus showing that the human world is not independent and that supernatural powers have an important bearing in this world. Pope thought that his mock epic would be incomplete withoutmachinery. The machinery of his poem comprises the sylphs led by Ariel. Pope described wittily the occupation and tasks of the sylphs in general.

Ariel and his followers were assigned humble but pleasant duty of serving fashionable young ladies. Their functions are described humorously including saving the powder from being blown off from the cheeks of ladies, preventing scents from evaporating, preparing cosmetics, teaching the ladies to blush and to put on enchanting airs, suggesting new ideas about dress.
The sylphs show a delightful downscaling of the epic machines. They are heroic standards but feel scared when a crisis approaches. They are Belinda's counselors. They explain the various anxieties that make up Belinda's day.

“The Rape of the Lock” may be described as a satirical comedy of manners. The sylphs in this poem are both in mirror and mock customs and conventions of the society of the time. Belinda is told in a dream about the danger of life.
Reassuring Belinda in this way, Ariel is in fact undermining her moral position. He explains how a woman’s defence is achieved. A maid would fall to Florio if Demon were not at hand to divert her attention. It is the sylphs who make her do that.
The machines are present at every crucial situation in the play. The sylphs are present during Belinda’s journey by boat to Hampton Court. They have been warned by Ariel to remain alert and vigilant. Fifty of them take charge of Belinda’s petticoat. They attend on her when she plays Ombre. They hover around her when she sips coffee and they withdraw only when Ariel sees “an earthly lover lurking at her heart”. A gnome, called Umbriel, goes to the cave of Spleen and brings a bag full of sighs, sobs, screams and outbursts of anger, and a phial filled with fainting fits, gentle sorrows, soft briefs, etc. all of which are released over Belinda. And then sylphs are present to witness the flight of Belinda’s lock of hair to the sky.

The sylphs were added to the poem not simply as shinning trinkets and three-penny bits to a Christmas pudding but to develop and flavour the whole. They improve the literary and human mockery. The machinery of sylphs is the principal symbol of the triviality of Belinda’s world. “The light militia of the lower sky” is a parody of both Homeric deities and Miltonic guardian angles. Like these they have an ambiguous status; they exist within and without the characters. The sylphs who protect Belinda are also her acceptance of the rules of social convention which presume that a coquette’s life is a pure game.
The machinery of sylphs in this poem is vastly superior to the allegorical personages of respective mock-epics. It allows Pope to show his awareness of the absurdities which nevertheless is charming, delightful and filled with a real poetry. The myth also allows him to suggest that the charm, in past at least, springs from the very absurdity.
Machinery serves various purposes in the poem. It imparts splendour and wonder to the actors and the actions in the story. Like Homer’s gods, Pope’s sylphs move easily in and out of the lower world. What they really stand for – feminine honour, flirtation courtship, the necessary rivalry of man and woman – is seen in its essence, and is always beautiful.
These “light militia of the lower sky”, increase dramatic suspense and story depth. They help to universalize the whole action. They are in binding symbolism of the little drama.
The sylphan machinery is superb. Ariel offers a satanic substitute for Christianity. Addison advised Pope against adding the machinery of the sylphs to the poem but that Pope ignored the advice. Pope succeeded eminently in his design of introducing his element.

According to John Dennis, Pope’s machinery contradicts the doctrine of the Christian religion and all sound morality. They provide no instruction and make no impression upon a sensible reader. Instead of making the action wonderful and delightful, they render it absurd, and incredible. Dennis’ opinion is, however, not sound or convincing.