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 was based on an incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre were both from aristocratic Catholic families at a period, in England, when Catholicism was legally proscribed. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to "comically merge the two". Pope utilises the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduces an entire system of "sylphs," or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods and goddesses of conventional epic. Pope satirizes a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods.

Pope could be criticizing the over-reaction of contemporary society to trivial things.

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,

What mighty contests rise from trivial things

: — Canto I

But whilst describing flamboyance of contemporary society in epic terms does ironically juxtapose the extreme triviality of this situation with the seemingly more grave situations of the epic heroes, it is also possible that Pope was inferring that within the constraints of the contemporary Beau Monde, it was equally heroic, for example, for a woman to succeed in life by marrying well, or for a suitor to attain his goal.

The humour of the poem comes from the position 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.

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