Work record

The Rape of the Lock

Alexander Pope

1712 (enlarged 1714; final text 1717) · 18th Century · Poetry · English

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Abstract

Written: Two cantos 1712; five cantos 1714; Clarissa's speech added 1717
Setting: The reign of Queen Anne, about 1711; London, the Thames and Hampton Court Palace
Author: Alexander Pope
Country: Kingdom of Great Britain (United Kingdom)
Language: English
Genre: Mock-heroic narrative poem
Form: Five cantos of heroic couplets, about 790 lines, with a prose dedication
Recommended: Grades 9–12 (Witty mock-epic; notes on classical epic and eighteenth-century fashion help. Rape means seizure.)

Background. A young peer cut a curl from Arabella Fermor's head, and two Catholic households quarrelled. At John Caryll's request Pope wrote a light piece to reconcile them, then expanded it with a supernatural cast.

Content. Warned in sleep by an airy guardian, a society beauty adorns herself, travels by river to a royal palace, and triumphs at cards. During the coffee that follows, an admirer borrows shears and severs a tress. A sullen sprite fetches sorrow from the grotto of ill temper; her friends rage; a sensible lady's appeal fails; a farcical skirmish ends with the curl translated into a star.

Form. Polished couplets imitate Homer and Virgil: invocation, divine agents, arming, a journey below, combat, apotheosis.

Themes. Vanity and fashion, honour and appearance, the confusion of trivial and serious, and the transience of beauty.

Reception. An instant success, it is still regarded as the finest English mock-epic, admired by Johnson and imitated by many later satirists.

For students. Track the epic devices canto by canto, then ask what Pope really admires. Notice lines that yoke a serious matter to a trivial one, and the sudden glimpse of hungry judges outside the palace. Read the Sarpedon passage from Homer beside the sensible lady's speech, and discuss what really lasts when youthful looks are gone.

Main characters

Belinda: A fashionable beauty
The Baron: The lord who steals her curl
Ariel: Her guardian sylph
Umbriel: A gloomy gnome
Clarissa: Lender of the scissors and voice of good sense
Thalestris: Belinda's fierce companion

Summary

The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic poem in five cantos by Alexander Pope. It grew out of a real quarrel between two Roman Catholic families. In 1711 the young Lord Petre snipped a lock of hair from the head of Arabella Fermor, and the families fell out; Pope's friend John Caryll suggested a comic poem to laugh them back into friendship. A two-canto version appeared in 1712; in 1714 Pope enlarged it to five cantos and added the machinery of sylphs and gnomes, and in 1717 he added Clarissa's speech on good humour. The word rape here has its older sense of seizing or carrying off: the poem treats the theft of a curl with all the solemn apparatus of Homer and Virgil. Belinda sleeps until noon and is warned in a dream by her guardian sylph Ariel that some dread event threatens her. Her dressing table becomes an altar and her toilet the arming of an epic hero, where puffs, powders, patches, Bibles and billets-doux lie side by side. She sails up the Thames to Hampton Court with the sylphs hovering about her. There the Baron, who has prayed to the powers of love for success and burned his old love letters as a sacrifice, plays her at ombre, a card game described as an epic battle. Over coffee he borrows a pair of scissors from Clarissa and, after Ariel discovers an earthly lover in Belinda's heart and must withdraw, he snips the lock. Belinda's fury drives the fourth canto, in which the gnome Umbriel descends to the Cave of Spleen and brings back a bag of sighs and a vial of tears. Clarissa urges the company to keep good humour, since beauty fades and only merit wins the soul, but nobody listens; a battle of fans, frowns and snuff follows. In the end the lock vanishes, and the poet declares that it has risen to the heavens as a new star, made immortal by his verse. Pope's satire is affectionate as well as sharp. He mocks a society that confuses great things with small, where the death of a lap-dog and the loss of honour cause equal screams, and where hungry judges sign sentences so that jurymen may dine; yet he clearly enjoys its brilliance. Students can learn how epic conventions work by watching them applied to trifles, and Clarissa's speech, modelled on Sarpedon's speech in Homer's Iliad, raises a serious question about what lasts when beauty does not.

Virtues in this work

Humility: Clarissa's speech exposes vanity and commends merit over outward charm.
Temperance: The poem mocks excess in fashion, display and anger.
Friendship: It was written to reconcile two families and laugh them out of a quarrel.

Plot or Argument

Dedication and Canto I: the dream and the toilet
The poet invokes his Muse; Ariel warns the sleeping Belinda of danger; she dresses at her toilet as if arming for war.
Canto II: the voyage
Belinda sails on the Thames; the Baron sacrifices to love; Ariel summons the sylphs to guard her lock.
Canto III: the card game and the crime
At Hampton Court Belinda wins at ombre; over coffee the Baron uses Clarissa's scissors to cut the lock.
Canto IV: the Cave of Spleen
Umbriel fetches sighs and tears from the goddess of Spleen; Thalestris and Sir Plume demand the lock in vain.
Canto V: the battle and the star
Clarissa's plea for good humour is ignored; a mock battle follows; the lock rises to the stars.

Characters

Belinda, heroine
A beautiful young lady of fashion, modelled on Arabella Fermor.
The Baron, adversary
The young lord who cuts the lock, modelled on Lord Petre.
Ariel, sylph
Belinda's guardian spirit, who commands the sylphs.
Umbriel, gnome
A melancholy sprite who visits the Cave of Spleen.
Clarissa, counsellor
The lady who lends the scissors and later urges good humour.
Thalestris, friend
Belinda's fiery friend, named after an Amazon queen.
Sir Plume, beau
A foppish gentleman who demands the lock's return.

Lessons

How mock-epic works
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- Which epic conventions can you find in each canto?
- What is the effect of describing a card game as a battle?
- How does the comparison flatter or mock the characters?
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Context

The poem reflects the fashionable world of Queen Anne's London, with its coffee, card games, visits to Hampton Court and new luxuries from trade. Pope, Petre, Caryll and the Fermors belonged to the small Catholic community that kept to itself under the penal laws.

Composition

Published in two cantos in Lintot's Miscellany (1712), enlarged to five cantos with the sylphs (1714), and completed with Clarissa's speech in Pope's Works (1717). The library's text is Thomas Marc Parrott's school edition (1906) of the 1714/1717 poem with the dedication to Arabella Fermor.

Reception

It was an immediate success and remains the most admired mock-heroic poem in English. Arabella Fermor was reportedly pleased at first and later annoyed at the gossip it caused.

Satire Folly Honor Shame Gender Women Class / Society Art / Creation

Comparisons

The Iliad
Pope also translated the Iliad; Clarissa's speech parodies Sarpedon's speech to Glaucus.
The Aeneid
Virgil's epic machinery of gods and heroes is the model for the sylphs and the battle.
Paradise Lost
Milton's spirits, temptation and fall are echoed in the Baron's scheme and Belinda's loss.
Gulliver's Travels
Swift, Pope's friend, also satirises human pride by changing the scale of things.
Pride and Prejudice
Austen later satirises courtship, vanity and good sense in polite society.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things,”

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, lines 1-2 (Gutenberg #9800: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (Boston: Ginn, 1906)).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.”

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, line 138 (Gutenberg #9800: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (Boston: Ginn, 1906)).Quote card

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“Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms obey. Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes Tea.”

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto III, lines 7-8 (Gutenberg #9800: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (Boston: Ginn, 1906)).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jury-men may dine;”

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto III, lines 21-22 (Gutenberg #9800: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (Boston: Ginn, 1906)).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."”

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto V, line 34 (Gutenberg #9800: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (Boston: Ginn, 1906)).Quote card

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“But since, alas! frail beauty must decay, Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey;”

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto V, lines 25-26 (Gutenberg #9800: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (Boston: Ginn, 1906)).Quote card

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For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The epic invocation and the comic subject in the first lines.
The toilet scene as an arming of a hero.
The game of ombre as a battle.
The journey to the Cave of Spleen as a descent to the underworld.
Clarissa's speech and the response to it.

Key terms and names

Mock-heroic (mock-epic): Treating a trivial subject in the grand style of epic for comic effect.
Machinery: The supernatural beings who intervene in an epic; here sylphs and gnomes.
Zeugma: One word governing two others in different senses, as stain her honour, or her new brocade.
Ombre: A fashionable three-handed card game of the period.
Spleen: Ill temper and melancholy, thought to come from the spleen.
Rape: In its older sense, the seizing or carrying off of something.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension What real event lies behind the poem, and why did Caryll suggest it?
Comprehension What does Ariel warn Belinda about?
Comprehension How does the Baron get the lock?
Interpretation What do the objects on Belinda's dressing table say about her world?
Interpretation Why does no one listen to Clarissa?
Interpretation Is the ending, with the lock among the stars, a compliment or a joke?
Big Question What is truly worth fighting over, and how can we tell trifles from serious things?

Faith Connections

1 Peter 3:3-4 (Scripture)
Peter commends the hidden beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit over outward adornment, as Clarissa commends merit over charms.
Proverbs 31:30 (Scripture)
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain: the moral the poem gestures toward.
Ecclesiastes 1:2 (Scripture)
Vanity of vanities: the poem's glittering world is a comic picture of vanity.
Homer, Iliad XII (Great Conversation)
Sarpedon tells Glaucus that honour justifies the risks of war; Clarissa's parody asks what justifies a life of beauty.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: By treating a stolen curl as an epic catastrophe, the poem shows a society that confuses trifles with serious things; only good humour, sense and merit outlast beauty, and only the poet can make anything here immortal.

Rhetorical device: zeugma. Or stain her honour, or her new brocade: one verb yokes a moral and a material loss to expose the society's values.

Debate: Resolved: that The Rape of the Lock mocks Belinda more than it admires her.

Memory Work

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
Canto I, lines 1-2. The famous opening couplet sets out the mock-epic method.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."
Canto V, line 34. A compact moral from Clarissa.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Show how Pope uses three epic conventions to satirise his society, and explain what he values in its place.

Comparison with The Iliad: Compare Sarpedon's speech in Iliad XII with Clarissa's speech: what does each say makes a life worthwhile?

Creative Prompts

Classroom
Make a chart of epic conventions (invocation, arming, journey, battle, underworld, apotheosis) and find Pope's comic version of each.
Essay
Is The Rape of the Lock more a celebration or a criticism of its world? Argue from at least three passages.
Poetry
Write twenty lines of mock-heroic couplets about a trivial modern quarrel, such as a lost phone charger.
Adaptation
Retell Canto III as a sports commentary on the card game.

The Rape of the Lock

Abstract

Main characters

Summary

Virtues in this work

Plot or Argument

Characters

Lessons

How mock-epic works

Confusing great and small

Good humour and merit

Context

Composition

Reception

Comparisons

Quotes

For Students

Reading Guide

Watch for

Key terms and names

Seminar Questions

Faith Connections

Logic and Rhetoric

Memory Work

Writing Prompts

Creative Prompts

Further Reading