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Rape of the Lock and Other Poems
Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air! If e'er one vision touch.'d thy infant thought, Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1717
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About the author
Alexander Pope
2,375 books684 followersPeople best remember
The Rape of the Lock
(1712) and
The Dunciad
(1728), satirical mock-epic poems of English writer Alexander Pope.
Ariel, a sylph, guards the heroine of The Rape of the Lock of Alexander Pope.
People generally regard Pope as the greatest of the 18th century and know his verse and his translation of Homer. After William Shakespeare and Alfred Tennyson, he ranks as third most frequently quoted in the language. Pope mastered the heroic couplet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...
Ariel, a sylph, guards the heroine of The Rape of the Lock of Alexander Pope.
People generally regard Pope as the greatest of the 18th century and know his verse and his translation of Homer. After William Shakespeare and Alfred Tennyson, he ranks as third most frequently quoted in the language. Pope mastered the heroic couplet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
May 12, 2025
It was an age when a great, much-read author played an amusing sycophant to the flighty whims of Augustan nobility - thus, rightly called the Augustan Age of English Literature - when, over in France, great writers darned well said whatever they pleased about their rulers.
But - in both countries - irony ruled the field!
An irony which dodged regal conviction.
And so it this with one artful poem, to which this review is narrowed. It was the Augustan plum at the bottom of the pie for me, a young Aspie in his mandatory first year Eng Lit 101, in 1967.
And Pope's wide erudition salted with irony trumped all others in the 18th century interlude in those lost autumnal days!
Belinda, like me back then, is a young lady who lives in a fairytale refined world like a dreamland…
So we see her, at the opening, greeting the new day, at noon yet (but noblesse oblige, haha)!
But seriously, folks, is she so different from Adolescent teens nowadays on the weekend?
But her sleep was deeply disturbed by Adolescent urges. Fie on them!♡
Her naughty teen Spirit Guide, Ariel, has given her hot flushes. In 1967 I was similarly puritanical yet, as Dad said, hot and bothered. Been there, done that.
Now, said the vast world of literature, Try THIS...
I wanted then, as now, to sublimate my crass self through books, though nowadaya it's more out of boredom😌 that I read!
But even the lightest cozy mystery can now lure you to the Dark Alleys of Dis. Nowadays things have hidden by-ways that can make you jump!
Back in the Augustan Age, the royal road led to literature...
And a magical sleepy land where even the most hot and bothered noble sleeper wakes to a stable and predicable world of polite aristocratic smiles.
But - in both countries - irony ruled the field!
An irony which dodged regal conviction.
And so it this with one artful poem, to which this review is narrowed. It was the Augustan plum at the bottom of the pie for me, a young Aspie in his mandatory first year Eng Lit 101, in 1967.
And Pope's wide erudition salted with irony trumped all others in the 18th century interlude in those lost autumnal days!
Belinda, like me back then, is a young lady who lives in a fairytale refined world like a dreamland…
So we see her, at the opening, greeting the new day, at noon yet (but noblesse oblige, haha)!
But seriously, folks, is she so different from Adolescent teens nowadays on the weekend?
But her sleep was deeply disturbed by Adolescent urges. Fie on them!♡
Her naughty teen Spirit Guide, Ariel, has given her hot flushes. In 1967 I was similarly puritanical yet, as Dad said, hot and bothered. Been there, done that.
Now, said the vast world of literature, Try THIS...
I wanted then, as now, to sublimate my crass self through books, though nowadaya it's more out of boredom😌 that I read!
But even the lightest cozy mystery can now lure you to the Dark Alleys of Dis. Nowadays things have hidden by-ways that can make you jump!
Back in the Augustan Age, the royal road led to literature...
And a magical sleepy land where even the most hot and bothered noble sleeper wakes to a stable and predicable world of polite aristocratic smiles.
June 9, 2009
Compared to the Nineteenth Century's Romantic movement and the Seventeenth's Shakespeare and Milton, the Eighteenth has always felt a veritable void to me. There was a little bit going on in France with Diderot and Voltaire, and some minor British works by Swift and Defoe, but by and large, Eighteenth Century literature is Fielding and Pope.
He began his inimitable wit and wordly mastery with 'An Essay on Criticism' when he was only 21. It was a varied, vivid exploration of what makes writing good, and includes such oft-quoted lines as "To err is human, to forgive divine", "A little learning is a dangerous thing", and "fools rush in where angels fear to tread".
Four years later he added his contribution to the Epic Tradition with 'The Rape of the Lock'. One of the reasons that this was a slow century for literature was that it was a century obsessed with the superficial. Like all great Epicists before him, Pope captured the spirit of his age, but in this case, instead of capturing it in a broad net of climactic action, beautiful language, and political posturing, he speared it with an acerbic tongue.
His epic was a small one, but just as Milton reinvented the genre by replacing the hero with the villain, Pope revolutionized the genre by replacing the epic with the everyday. His lampooning of the high nobility and their self-importance allied him literarily with his contemporaries, such as Voltaire, who all prefigured the social and literary revolution of the coming century.
Pope plays a very delicate instrument with his epic, often balancing a thin line between respect and ridicule: the same line the nobility had to walk every day. His linguistic and conceptual abilities shine here, as does his humor, which lies on the upper borders of the clever and the witty.
Pope had an unfortunately backward view of women, nowhere reaching the subtle implications of Milton's autoerotic Eve or Shakespeare's Cleopatra, or even the powerful women of the Greek and Roman Epics. Yet his portrayals here do not show the same bias as his 'Epistle to a Lady', since he lets his mockery fall equally on the foolish men and women of his period, and often for the same superficialities.
His later works consisted of translations and numerous political treatises, which though scathing and brilliant in their way, do not continue the philosophic and artistic exploration begun in 'An Essay on Criticism' and expanded in 'The Rape of the Lock'. The Dunciad certainly has a similar bent, but is too historo-specific to really have the same effect, so 'The Rape of The Lock' is probably the best work of the best British poet of the Eighteenth.
He began his inimitable wit and wordly mastery with 'An Essay on Criticism' when he was only 21. It was a varied, vivid exploration of what makes writing good, and includes such oft-quoted lines as "To err is human, to forgive divine", "A little learning is a dangerous thing", and "fools rush in where angels fear to tread".
Four years later he added his contribution to the Epic Tradition with 'The Rape of the Lock'. One of the reasons that this was a slow century for literature was that it was a century obsessed with the superficial. Like all great Epicists before him, Pope captured the spirit of his age, but in this case, instead of capturing it in a broad net of climactic action, beautiful language, and political posturing, he speared it with an acerbic tongue.
His epic was a small one, but just as Milton reinvented the genre by replacing the hero with the villain, Pope revolutionized the genre by replacing the epic with the everyday. His lampooning of the high nobility and their self-importance allied him literarily with his contemporaries, such as Voltaire, who all prefigured the social and literary revolution of the coming century.
Pope plays a very delicate instrument with his epic, often balancing a thin line between respect and ridicule: the same line the nobility had to walk every day. His linguistic and conceptual abilities shine here, as does his humor, which lies on the upper borders of the clever and the witty.
Pope had an unfortunately backward view of women, nowhere reaching the subtle implications of Milton's autoerotic Eve or Shakespeare's Cleopatra, or even the powerful women of the Greek and Roman Epics. Yet his portrayals here do not show the same bias as his 'Epistle to a Lady', since he lets his mockery fall equally on the foolish men and women of his period, and often for the same superficialities.
His later works consisted of translations and numerous political treatises, which though scathing and brilliant in their way, do not continue the philosophic and artistic exploration begun in 'An Essay on Criticism' and expanded in 'The Rape of the Lock'. The Dunciad certainly has a similar bent, but is too historo-specific to really have the same effect, so 'The Rape of The Lock' is probably the best work of the best British poet of the Eighteenth.
October 11, 2019
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.
Alexander Pope represents an ideal of poetry which the Romantic age almost annihilated: epigrammatic, metrical, rhyming, satirical, and unemotional. He is from the Augustan age of classical taste. This makes reading his works a curious experience nowadays, since his poems are rich in memorable lines but almost barren of keen sentiment, meditative wondering, or ardent longing. They are unpoetic poems.
Pope excels nearly every rival in his ability as a wordsmith. Endlessly quotable, technically brilliant, he wrote heroic couplets as effortlessly as Mozart composed melodies. At its best, Pope’s poetry explodes with meaning, as he hits you with one perfectly turned aphorism after another. But too much verse is a dangerous thing: the unvarying succession of iambic pentameter can easily lull one to sleep. And even sharp wit can be dull if used too often.
By common consent, Pope’s greatest poem is the “Rape of the Lock,” a mock-epic satirizing a silly quarrel in high-society. It is a charming poem. But I have always preferred Pope’s didactic works, the “Essay on Criticism” and the “Essay on Man.” The former is irresistible to someone who styles himself a critic—a magnificent credo which exemplifies all of the virtues it professes. The latter is perhaps even more replete with wonderful lines, though the optimistic philosophy of the “Essay on Man” can strike us now as jejune and shallow.
Some of Pope’s other works, most notably the “Dunciad,” are nearly unreadable nowadays. Pope loved a good literary fight, and took many opportunities to fling darts at his enemies. This was probably good fun for his contemporaries, but for a modern-day reader it is uninspiring, since she must familiarize herself with all of the literary hacks and other mediocrities that Pope saw fit to insult—and that seems to defeat the purpose.
July 24, 2016
I only read "An Essay on Criticism" and "The Rape of the Lock". I wanted to like them more than I actually liked them. I think the fault is mine because they are clearly brilliant. But I just yawned and got distracted easily the whole time. I'll come back to this later. Maybe this just isn't speaking to me right now.
August 31, 2007
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.Pope brilliantly
presents this storm in a tea cup seasoned with satire,wit
and humor.I had actually memorized some wonderful verses in this text which now I have forgotten.Time to re-read it..
presents this storm in a tea cup seasoned with satire,wit
and humor.I had actually memorized some wonderful verses in this text which now I have forgotten.Time to re-read it..
October 5, 2024
A couple of interesting verses:
"What then remains but well our pow'r to use,
And keep good-humour still whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear! good-humour can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail."
"A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind"
"Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of Order, sins against th' Eternal Cause."
"All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever Is, Is Right."
"What then remains but well our pow'r to use,
And keep good-humour still whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear! good-humour can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail."
"A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind"
"Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of Order, sins against th' Eternal Cause."
"All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever Is, Is Right."
Read
November 6, 2019Brilliant. Appreciated the 'translations' of old meanings. He was an inspiring poet whose works endure.
May 6, 2018
I only read The Rape of the Lock and loved how it was a great mix of wit and beautiful prose.
July 16, 2007
oh, my satire class. it may have been painful, but you can't deny the genius of pope's work.
Read
April 12, 2024The first poem in this collection, "An Essay on Criticism," holds the incredible distinction of containing the coinage of not one, not two, but three well known English sayings: "A little learning is a dang'rous thing", "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread", and "To err is human; to forgive, divine." If you hadn't before, you may notice now that each of these is a line of iambic pentameter. Pope is a master of turn of phrase, which is why so many of these lines are immortalized. On the whole, though, his poems don't work for me. They are either philosophical & boring, or satires of sociopolitical situations 300 years old. "Eloïsa and Abelard," which contains the line "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind," is the outlier in this collection, in that its focus is emotional rather than rational, and it is consequently far and away the best thing here.
November 21, 2024
Obviously funnier when written and all the allusions, comparisons, erudite bits were more easily understood by the reader, who today struggles even with the English. However, it's worth your effort to get a sense of how sophisticated and broadly informed a writer can be, without becoming William Gaddis peddling factoids about early Christian heresies.
February 14, 2021
Sharp response to critics, on the nature of man, energetic writing but with typical rhyme scheme and formatting. Rape of the Lock is a fantastical story of a girl whose lock if hair is cut off and stolen by some men.
Quote of "to err is human, to forgive, divine."
Quote of "to err is human, to forgive, divine."
May 8, 2020
Amusing mock heroic
Entertainingly and provides insights to the early Georgian aristocrats. It’s not too hard to understand if you have a basic knowledge of classical themes.
Entertainingly and provides insights to the early Georgian aristocrats. It’s not too hard to understand if you have a basic knowledge of classical themes.
December 31, 2021
I like Pope.
April 18, 2022
the classical allusions are so fun and fresh but my english module is rather dull i am afraid
August 21, 2022
The Rape of the Lock was an amazing poem, unfortunately the rest of the poems were a bit too lengthy for my liking, wherein it missed some integral components in terms of cadence.
November 15, 2024
I only read “The Rape of the Lock”. I think that’s enough.
May 6, 2022
"A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again."
I will also have the image forever in my mind of the scissors cutting the sprite in two, and Pope taking time out of his poem to reassure us that it just rejoined itself and was totally fine. I wish I had read some of these sooner! I'd never once heard of him during high school or college, from a teacher.
I will also have the image forever in my mind of the scissors cutting the sprite in two, and Pope taking time out of his poem to reassure us that it just rejoined itself and was totally fine. I wish I had read some of these sooner! I'd never once heard of him during high school or college, from a teacher.
October 28, 2020
Of Pope’s work, aspiring poets today ought to take a renewed interest in Essay on Criticism. Since I initially studied this text with poet and editor David Barber many years ago, a few of its famous lines and images stuck with me. So when I started offering a workshop myself, I re-read with the intervening fifteen or so years making odd reverberations. The text hadn’t aged--it had become young again.
Written when Pope was young himself--a tender age of 19--the poem is first and foremost a tribute to the dawning influence of Hellenic studies on the West. With access to Greek texts and a growing dissemination of ancient Greek grammar, Pope’s poem pivots away from a Roman-centric view of poetics and resituates the Hellenic tradition as the true and proper origin of all natural, unfettered poetic feeling and value. While readers today take for granted the immediacy and power of Greek myth and Homeric imagery, Pope’s shift was still radical at the time. Moreover, he advances this thesis in the form of a verse essay that itself is packed with rich imagery and enduring zingers.
One of my workshop attendees decried reading another dead white male, the tedium of parsing through antiquated English. Another asked me point-blank what I got out of such writing--certainly poets today don’t write like this. Neither complaint is easy to answer on its face. But in reading this essay, one will find ideas and phrases buried in our culture that have become figures of speech--phrases like “a little learning is a dangerous thing” or “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. These phrases are bandied about blindly for the most part, used and reused both in casual conversation and in contemporary essays, novels, movies, comics, tweets--all over our culture. They shape and inform how we look at the world, even if to most, their origin is lost.
But the job of the poet is to use language deliberately. As language is shaped by previous use, it is impossible to deploy English correctly in poetry without some study of its etymology. Alexander Pope rocked the foundations of 18th century English literature. If you intended to struggle against this tradition and its biases, you must first understand them.
Written when Pope was young himself--a tender age of 19--the poem is first and foremost a tribute to the dawning influence of Hellenic studies on the West. With access to Greek texts and a growing dissemination of ancient Greek grammar, Pope’s poem pivots away from a Roman-centric view of poetics and resituates the Hellenic tradition as the true and proper origin of all natural, unfettered poetic feeling and value. While readers today take for granted the immediacy and power of Greek myth and Homeric imagery, Pope’s shift was still radical at the time. Moreover, he advances this thesis in the form of a verse essay that itself is packed with rich imagery and enduring zingers.
One of my workshop attendees decried reading another dead white male, the tedium of parsing through antiquated English. Another asked me point-blank what I got out of such writing--certainly poets today don’t write like this. Neither complaint is easy to answer on its face. But in reading this essay, one will find ideas and phrases buried in our culture that have become figures of speech--phrases like “a little learning is a dangerous thing” or “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. These phrases are bandied about blindly for the most part, used and reused both in casual conversation and in contemporary essays, novels, movies, comics, tweets--all over our culture. They shape and inform how we look at the world, even if to most, their origin is lost.
But the job of the poet is to use language deliberately. As language is shaped by previous use, it is impossible to deploy English correctly in poetry without some study of its etymology. Alexander Pope rocked the foundations of 18th century English literature. If you intended to struggle against this tradition and its biases, you must first understand them.
October 2, 2008
Brilliant in places, but not consistently so. The Essays on Criticism and on Man are excellent, and The Rape of the Lock is delightful, but I found the Dunciad to be tedious and meanspirited. In the latter work, one of the minor poets Pope is mocking is made to say:
As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below:
Me emptiness and Dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.
Pope seems not to notice that it is he himself, in writing something called a "Dunciad," who is taking emptiness and dullness as his inspiration, and it shows. As Nietzsche would have said if he had thought of it, "Wer mit Dummköpfe kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Dummkopf wird."
As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below:
Me emptiness and Dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.
Pope seems not to notice that it is he himself, in writing something called a "Dunciad," who is taking emptiness and dullness as his inspiration, and it shows. As Nietzsche would have said if he had thought of it, "Wer mit Dummköpfe kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Dummkopf wird."
March 22, 2013
I find Pope's education, polish, and wit delightful. His poems are a world away from the emotionally-laden poetry of the Romantics or the rough, personal poetry of the modern era, but appreciate them for what they are. "The Rape of the Lock" is satire at its finest, brought off with a light touch but still having a needle-sharp point. It is the kind of poem that makes one realize how great the rewards of having a thorough classical education could be; the "in jokes" are endless for one who knows his mythology, rhetoric, and philosophy.
January 30, 2016
I think Pope is great with heroic couplets and words--that's all super lovely. I just had a harder time looking at this story comically. I couldn't get away from the theme of actual rape and the idea that Belinda doesn't control her own body. While Pope makes fun of the court's frivolity, he's also making light of Belinda's situation, which did not settle well with me.
August 19, 2009
Good shit. Pope's an awesome poet, one of the best ever in my opinion, though I prefer other poets for artistry. Pope is funny and writes perfect verse like you wouldn't believe. If I want emotion I go elsewhere, but Pope makes me LOL.
March 1, 2015
What a genius this man is. A treasure to read and to have read.
"Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!"
"What, and how great, the virtue and the art,
To live on little with a cheerful heart!"
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"
"A knowledge both of books and human kind."
"Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!"
"What, and how great, the virtue and the art,
To live on little with a cheerful heart!"
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"
"A knowledge both of books and human kind."
September 21, 2007
Had fun studying it!
December 12, 2008
I know I'm supposed to like Alexander Pope, cause he's an English mastermind and all, but it was pretty painful reading this book.
December 15, 2008
The Rape of the Lock 2/11/07
January 4, 2009
i rated it four stars for its genius, not necessarily bc i liked it...respect it yes...like it...not really
February 15, 2009
this was pure torture for me. some beautiful language and imagery at some points but overall i just couldn't take it...
May 7, 2009
Centuries-old parody isn't the easiest stuff to appreciate, but it's likable.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews