The Rape of the Lock

A mock-epic poem by Alexander Pope that turns the cutting of a young woman’s lock of hair into a comic social scandal. It satirizes aristocratic vanity by treating trivial events in the style of classical heroism.

Mock-epic: A comic form that applies the elevated style and conventions of epic to a trivial subject. Pope uses epic language and supernatural machinery to magnify a stolen curl.
John Caryll: An English Catholic politician and writer who was a friend and patron of Alexander Pope. Caryll encouraged Pope to turn a quarrel between the Petre and Fermor families into a comic poem.
Alexander Pope: An English poet and satirist whose works include The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad. Pope transformed a personal dispute into a polished satire of fashionable society.
The Iliad: An ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer, centered on the Trojan War and the anger of Achilles. Pope borrows epic conventions associated with Homer while replacing battlefield stakes with a drawing-room quarrel.
The Dunciad: A satirical poem by Alexander Pope that attacks dullness and the forces he believed degraded literature. It shows Pope developing the sharp social and literary satire already present in his earlier poem.
Epic simile: An extended comparison, often elaborated over several lines, characteristic of epic poetry. Pope’s elaborate comparisons make fashionable rituals seem as consequential as heroic action.
Arabella Fermor: An English Catholic woman whose severed lock of hair inspired the central incident in Pope’s poem. Pope’s portrayal of Belinda drew on Fermor, the young woman at the center of the original dispute.
John Dennis: An English critic and dramatist whose attacks on Alexander Pope became part of their long-running literary feud. Dennis’s criticism illustrates the combative literary culture in which Pope’s satire circulated.
The Aeneid: A Latin epic poem by Virgil recounting Aeneas’s journey from Troy and the origins of Rome. Its epic conventions help establish the grand poetic tradition Pope playfully imitates.
Rape (literary theme): A literary theme involving sexual violation, abduction, or the taking of a person or possession by force. The title’s use of “rape” invokes violation, though the poem’s immediate plot concerns a severed lock.

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