TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20523, 16 April 1932, Page 13

TRIVIA.

[ wish tu advertise the merits of Keshavlnl L. Oza's edition of Pope's "Hapc of the Lock. - ' issued ("with an introductory essay by James Russell Lowell") from the press of Baliauddin College, Junagad, India, where Professor Oza holds the Chair of English; and I cannot bettor advertise than by illustrating them. The reader shall judge whether Rupees Three is too heavy a price to pay for the thirty pages of text and three hundred aud thirty of "explanations, citations, and comments . . . eminently calculated to deliver hard-worked students from the tender mercies of half-baked annotations," and for sixty pages of Lowell, a Biographical Outline of Pope's Life, and some Panegyrics, with a list of "Works for Reference thrown in.

.Mr O/.a 's scholarship is wide and minute, his taste scrupulous, his reading such as packs and weights the really "full man" (Bacon). The notes of course fully confirm this only when their full range is explored. These few .specimens (|uite inadequately hint at it. When .Belinda goes by boat to 1 lumpton Court, Pope says: Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe. Air Ozu comments: Shrouds: A set ot large ropes uxU-n<ling from the mast-head to the light and left sides oi a ship and supporting the mast. 'J"lit propriety oi speaking of the "shrouds" of a pleasure-boat, in queaticuuible, unless the arch persifleur uses the word in a lickwicKian sense. And when Ariel, among the protective sprites, is described a few lines further c" 1 . as "superior by the head" Air O/.a reminds his students, or informs them, that "tallness in loaders was greatly admired by the ancient" and establishes the truth by reference to the Divine Comedy, to three passages of the third book of the Iliad, to the first, book of "Paradise Lost," and finally to the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," where Tennyson "follows Homer, Ktatius, Dante, lierni, and Milton in stressing tallness as a desirable trait in a, leader of men." Readers who hesitate to accept this will be convinced by the quotation:

O fallen at length tlint tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that

hlew. Mr Oza acutely interprets "The Rape of the Lock" as a social document. On the first allusion to lap-dogs, for example, he is instantly ready:

Lap-dcga: l'et-dogs wore fashionable concomitants <.f the amiable British spinsters and were cherished as "little Cupids" as early as tho timo of Chaucer, if rot earlier. He knows all about "the snivelling fondness betrayed by the coquettes of [Pope's] day for sparkling in the box [at the opera] and ogling in the King" [at Hyde Park]. Ho reads the whole elaborate chart of Augustan niodishness, but is too wise to think that folly died with it, as witnesses his footnote to his note on the "twelve vast French romances" which the baron burned:

Pope's satire against the depraved taste for Htories that are just a little naughty, which the dainty damsels had sedulously cultivated ii liis day, is applicable "mutatis mutandis" to "les jeunes filles" of our own age of mystical fudge.

Or again, in his note —distinguished by its high moral tone —on the taste for brocade: '

By launching boldly out. on a fierce diatribe againßt the Bedlam delusions •>!' his light, 'omptv, and profane ace, and in denouncing the shameless extravagance in dress into which the "jcuues filles" of his day ran with callous indifference to the. decencies of life. Pope rendered n signal service to his generation. Unhappily, his vials of aj ocalyptic vengeance did not cure splendid sensualists and consummate coquettes of their frenzy for finery, since upwards of a century after the publication of "The Rape of tho Lock" Jane Austen felt bound to raise her voice against tho customary prepossessions of her sex regarding superfluous daintiness in dress. She did not flinch from what Sidney Smith called "speaking disrespectfully of the equator" in " 'Northanger Abbey.''

It is a liltie difficult to know which emotion should hold sway, ,joy over the signal success of Pope's furious satirical attack or grief for its failure: but eiilier may bp as nobly felt as both arc prompted.

Mr Oza deals easily with hard words. When Pope in referring to gallant attentions uses tho word "impertinence," he hits it off exactly as "amiable hanky-panky." Or ho illuminates tlio phrase, "the moving toy-shop of llie heart," with the note, "toy-shop: a repository of glittering gewgaws." Or, when the four kings appear in the card game, "with hoary whiskers and a forky beard," he explains "whiskers" as "tufts of hair on either side of the face," ruling out tho "earlier sonse of 'mouatatches' as tho king of hearts is without any"; defines "forky" as "furcated, divided, branching off 011 both sides"; adds to tho definition a reference to the "justly colebrated passage" in which Shakespearo speaks of the Justice, "with eyes severe and beard of formal cut"; and lastly reminds the reader that "it was not till the reign of James 1., 'tho wisest fool in Christendom,' that Englishmen considered it a height of masculine perfection to shave off the whole face."

Mr Oza's critical powers are best studied, perhaps, ia such, a sustained exercise as his "Dissertation upo a Literary Burlesque," which' is flung into the midst of the notes. Beginning his review with Aristophanes, "the doyen of Greek parodists by long odds,'' he passes rapidly to Chaucer, who "hooks in parodies of ancient Greek sages in his 'Nun's Priest's Tale',", and to a host of other writers:

The "furor carpendi" grows by what it feeds on, as is evidenced by the teething mass of literary dragonnades belched forth from the underworld of letters by fits and staits.

It is a pity not to follow Professor Oza as ho stalks through several centuries and several literatures; but he is most impressive of all when lie reaches modern times. Here he praises the "Rejected Addresses," contrasting their "good-humoured mockery" and " 'Justosse' of exaggeration" with the "unrestrained drollery" of Shelley's "Peter 801 l the Third" and "the

drivelling idiocy'' of J. C. Squire's parodies uf Maselield. l!u pruiscs, 100, the "Bon Gaultier Ballads" ol: Martin and Aytoun, "a most amusing collection of parodies, designed to shake the pachydermatous poetasters out of their puerile predilection for rococo ornamentation": and after "disposing of Calverley, Stephen, (Seaman, and a few more closes with a careful estimate of ►Squire:

!' inally, v.v i-ume to J. C. Squire s ' Irickii o! tlie Trade" which contains btarcnod and mannered caricatures oi Gray, liabiudranath Tagore, W. 11. JJavies, Ililaire lielloe, John Masofield, and others. Wo ini.tinctivclv perceive in the armour of this icbel nonius cliink ni luavudo, which his critics, hypnotised by the litllo of giciious poetic music which mark his serious verse, have not yet discovered as a fit target fcr the shafts; of their satire. The thunder of tiie Armageddon ill his ears cured tlie young lirebranil of the impertinent singularity which threatened to hurl him head foremost into the. inferno of flapdoodle. Xo one, however, can doubt that, whether in aphelion or in perihelion, .7. C. Squire is ir.tensely and essentially a poet. His styles one; mannr:rs are manifold, and he has by ]~ ii tie lit industry acquired mastery ill all. We suspect llnjj; even in Ilia lighter ver«e lit is more or less deeply impressed by the conviction that really good parodies are "a department of nuro criticism," and not a. discipline in debasement. Since grossly inthe meniorv of (iray by representing him as composing bis celebrated Klegy auioni; tile "lewd forefathers" in the Spoon liiver cemetery, tlie brilliant: coxcomb has awakened to a realisation that parody is not his forlc, and bus in rnnsequetvo extricated himself from ihe mud nTfr7 sl/nie °f literary cesspools. in "which ''the servum peeus of. n 'iallie breed''.had waddled in tlie past. lict him not again steep h\i i'nul in the transient; popuhtiities of tlie hour to gratify the sinful and stunid ambition of propitiating the human slugs and puddle-sippers. who are. "Best pleased with what is aptliesl framed To enervate and defile."

But Professor 0/: i achieves his transcendent, his bun-taking success in the prose paraphrases by which lie enables the student, to see, no longer as through a glass darkly, but bathed in light, exactly what Pope meant. Yea, and mark how, though choice is dazzled by brilliance and bewildered by profusion; for the Professor delivers the goods and never lets up. Take perhaps a piece from Canto IV., about lino 115, where Thalestris, lhat "notoriously bellicose virago" and "astute frump," savs her piece to Belinda:

If your credit now stands on ouch slippery {.'round as J hove just adumbrated, I shell have tn screw my courage to the sticl;ingpiaee m pulling you through what threatens lo be a rum-start. You are put, on your purgation, and unless you come off with flynuj eoinurs, it )■> tantamount to courting social ostra'ism to associate cheek by jowl with > (IU

Or, better, furlher on, about line I~>o, where Belinda sits "taking her disfigurement in great dudgeon and brooding over her blasted hopes":

Had I sequestered myself from the world of Bandy charlatans and chosen to blush unseen, like loses in a. wilderness, I would neither have encountered the facile irregularities of smart society nor slipped into tho piecotious cynicism of a disillusioned coquette. Seriously, lam rather fed up with myself and have no inclination to ha doctrinaire about the origin of my cozenage. Indeed, I am too flurried to recall the circumstances which led up to the present contretemps. Had I discreetly 3hunncd tho bieathless scramble for promiscuous jollity in company of the dissolute scions of an effete aristocracy, find slid on tlia quiet current of life amid comparatively peaceful surroundings, I would have heen spared all tlie pother of glnomv forebodings that have Hopped fcti suddenly into my life

But: near the beginning of Canto V. there is Thalestris's cull to arms, following Clarissa's feeble effort at pacification: and this is wunder-schon:

The cold douche of common aenso with which Chmßßii sought to mollify tlio acerbated feelings of tiio onragod belles failed lo heal tho breach, since her hortatory effusion was received with loud yawps of execration. Belinda. bent her brow into a frinvn, while Thalcstri* ticked her off «R a pnido and up pen led to iiimn with nil tho vehemence ol an inveterate shrew. She vowed apocidyptio vengeance against tho bloody v,-ash-out. and rushed to tho fray to ltnock iiirn into n cocked hat, if possible

And.then and last, because there must be a close even where there is no end, the duel, about line. 80, between Belinda and the baron:

Witli Belinda fiercely determined rid® li'in down, the baron knew lie was u. gotio 'cooii, Kinco there was no chance of pulling himself togallier after tlio sttigßcring blow ho liutl received. However, he faced liis fate like a Trojan, and refused to cry pcccavi evi iv wlien tho infuriated lady tumbled him into a tight squeeze and threatened to pierco his vitals with her bodkin. . . . Down sank the wretched imp, confounded hut not clashed by defeat. "I)o not crow over my discomfiture, O haughty maid!'' lie rapped mil, unbearably strung up, "nor think yourself invested with immunities which you do not posßess. As surely as night follows day, you will, when your hour arrives, be overwhelmed hy an antagonist formidable er.oufrli to hoist, you on your own petard a-* relentlessly as you have shaken 1 tho sediments of my self-conceit and hustled me out of life in full vigour of manhood. Do not, however, imagine for a moment that I am so chicken-hearted as to bo appalled hy tlifl of dissolution, nr he lugubrious over the fear of punishment after death. A fit? for the king of terrors! I don't care a doit for the stinir of death, or for the victory of tile frravo rither. Nevertheless, what a roller I am! "MV imagination hoggles at tho ■prospect of a forcible sequestration from tho society of >i ehnrminsjlv naivr- vonncr damsel like you, in vhoso presence I felt a gratifyitirr sense of power. Tn the circumstances T implore vou in nil earnestness, to forbear from stfthbinr mo to death, if only to let me dove into (he wan' fo rnd fro of "brill:nnt dreams "nd blenk realities. T would rather he flayed alive in the fire of love than he flicked into the il-irkness of the grave in the springtime of life."

"Tnfallnyhlo," as the policeman said

At the end of (ho luiok, T forgot to mention. Professor Ozn asks twenty Suggestive Questions; —J.TT.E.R.