The Rape of the Lock, and Other PoemsAlexander PopeOmniClassics · Literature
The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems
Alexander PopeA stolen curl receives the elaborate machinery of an epic war.
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About the book
In The Rape of the Lock, Belinda's fashionable social world becomes the setting for a mock epic conflict over the cutting of a lock of hair. Pope surrounds cards, coffee, dressing, and wounded reputation with supernatural guardians and the grand gestures of heroic poetry. The disproportion between occasion and language makes the poem comic while giving social vanity and the vulnerability of reputation real force. This edition also offers other poems, including An Essay on Criticism, the first epistle of An Essay on Man, and the Epistle to Arbuthnot. Thomas Marc Parrott's introductions and notes supply guidance, and an appendix includes the earlier version of the title poem, allowing readers to compare its development.
- Social vanity
- Reputation
- Mock heroic poetry
Why read it
Read it for an elaborate comic world in which a small social injury can take on the scale of legend.
English collection edited by Thomas Marc Parrott