The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic poem written by Alexander Pope and published in May 1717. The poem is based on an incident involving Arabella Fermor and her suitor, possibly Lord Petre. Pope wrote the poem at the request of a friend in order to "laugh the two together". During a visit, the suitor asks for and then takes ("raped") a lock of hair from Arabella. Pope refigures Arabella as Belinda and introduces an entire system of "sylphs," or guardian spirits of virgins. The irony of the sylphs is that they do not exist and can do nothing to protect their virgins. Pope satirizes a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. Pope is criticizing the over-reaction of contemporary society to trivial things.

what dire offences rise from trivial things

- Canto I

The humor of the poem comes from the juxtaposition 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, Alexander Pope

Pope used epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of ladies scissors, hence satirising 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.

The poem was very well received and helped cement Pope's reputation as the foremost poet of his age.

Three moons of Uranus are named for characters in The Rape of the Lock - Belinda, Ariel and Umbriel.

External links

• Rape of the lock homepage (http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~sconstan/)
• Free eBook of The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9800) at Project Gutenberg