A Crime of Fate In Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve commit the first sin, and from this point on, all other sins are mere copies of this. Alexander Pope uses this to his benefit when he depicts the crime in The Rape of the Lock. By alluding to Milton’s work, Pope is able to comically refer to the cutting of a lock of hair as a tragic and epic event. In doing this, he paradoxically assumes that the crime is not one of personal fault, but one fated to happen by God, just as in Paradise Lost. “What dire offence from amorous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things,” (Pope, ll. 1-2). These first lines of The Rape of the Lo....

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