Point of View

The poem is written almost entirely in third-person point of view. There are a few brief interpolations from a first-person poetic perspective (like the call to the Muse right at the very beginning), but the rest is all a relatively distant third-person present tense. Readers are not even given a direct indication of what the characters are thinking and feeling, except in very occasional glimpses. For the most part, for instance, Belinda’s internal experiences are not described directly. They are expressed primarily through the fantastical figures of Ariel and Umbriel, who serve as magical expressions of how she is thinking and feeling. But her internal life is not directly shared with the reader.

The purpose of this perspective is critical to the interpretation of the poem. The distance that Pope maintains throughout the poem prevents the satire from landing too heavily on the real...