The Rape of the Lock
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The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic poem written by Alexander Pope, first published in 1712 in two cantos, and then reissued in 1714 in a much-expanded 5-canto version. The poem is based on an incident involving friends of Pope's. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre were both from aristocratic Catholic families at a time, in England, when Catholicism was legally proscribed. Petre, wooing Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the resulting argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope wrote the poem at the request of a friend in order to "laugh the two together". Pope refigures Arabella as Belinda and introduces an entire system of "sylphs", or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods and goddess of conventional epic. Pope satirizes a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. Pope is criticizing the over-reaction of contemporary society to trivial things.
- what dire offences rise from trivial things
- — Canto I
The humour of the poem comes from the juxtaposition of this tempest in a teapot of vanity with the elaborate, formal verbal structure of an epic poem. When the Baron, for example, goes to snip the lock of hair, Pope says,
- The Peer now spreads the glittering Forfex wide,
- T' inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
- Ev'n then, before the fatal Engine clos'd,
- A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
- Fate urged the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,
- (But Airy Substance soon unites again)
- The meeting Points the sacred Hair dissever
- From the fair Head, for ever and for ever!
- — Canto III
Pope used epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of ladies' scissors, hence satirizing the ridiculous nature of the whole situation. The useless and transient nature of the sylphs is seen here. One, cut in half by the "fatal engine" is unharmed.
The poem was very well received and helped cement Pope's reputation as the foremost poet of his age.
Two moons of Uranus are named for characters in The Rape of the Lock: Belinda and Umbriel.