Five-minute digest

The Rape of the Lock

Alexander Pope

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.

Top Lessons

How mock-epic works
Pope applies the grand machinery of epic, invocations, gods, arming scenes, battles, a journey to the underworld, to a trivial quarrel. The comedy teaches what epic is.
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Confusing great and small
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Verified 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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Frequently cited

“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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“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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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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The Rape of the Lock

Summary

Top Lessons

How mock-epic works

Confusing great and small

Good humour and merit

Verified Quotes