The Rape of the Lock

By Alexander Pope and Jr. Editors Pope, Alexander Lougee, David and McHenry, Robert

Book Overview

This edition reprints the text of Pope's classic poem -- both the five-canto 1714 version and the facsimilie of the original 1712 version -- together with a broad selection of documents. Including correspondence, poems, broadsides, reviews, and parodies, the documents focus special attention on Pope's life and career as well as on eighteenth-century poetic traditions and innovations, social habits and assumptions, historical events, and political implications. A general introduction providing historical and cultural background, a chronology of Pope's life and times, an introduction to each thematic group of documents, headnotes, extensive annotations, a selected bibliography, and a generous collection of maps, portraits, and illustrations make this volume a unique scholarly edition of this classic work of eighteenth-century literature.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199110123
• ISBN13: 9780199110124
• Release Date: March 1971
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.3" x 0.2" x 4.9"

Customer Reviews

The way literature should be done!

This review should be taken seriously considering I didn't really like "The Rape of the Lock" and still give this book 5 stars!"History is not a vacuum," one of my university history professors always told us. Neither is literature for that matter! This book examines the mock-epic poem "Rape of the Lock" in its social, literary, and historical contexts. The poem takes up a small portion of the book, and the rest is made up of diary entries, letters, essays, newspapers, etc. that help to explain the culture surrounding Pope. The city of London, clothes, card games, coffee, makeup, social norms, and countless other things are discussed in very readable and enjoyable ways in order to make "The Rape of the Lock" truly come alive.

The ultimate "mock epic"

This poem serves two purposes. First, Pope wrote it in response to an upper-class quarrel over an event at a party in which a young girl had her hair cut. The incident itself was petty and stupid, but the families of the parties involved were taking it very seriously. Pope, then, wrote this poem in epic form (the most grand of poetic forms) to show the absurdity of the matter, and thus reconcile the offender and offended. That is the first function of this poem. Even though the incident is long forgotten, the poem is still very funny. But there is a greater purpose to this poem--it was written like an epic. It contains several epic elements--an epic battle (at the card game), the invocation of muses and gods, the epic quest (to cut the hair), and several literary devices, such as epic-length similes and catalogs. This is what makes this poem so great, and what serves as a testimony to Pope's remarkable genius for wit and satire.Pope was, in my opinion, one of the greatest English poets, certainly the greatest satirist. This is one of his greatest works, and it is short enough to read over and over again without investing too much time.

Brilliantly written with wit, style, and a flair for detail.

This is a highly intelligent book on one of the finest poems by the eighteenth century's most celebrated poet. Brilliantly written with wit, style, and a flair for interesting detail, Wall's book includes textual information and a wealth of carefully selected secondary material that makes this "one-stop shopping" for anyone interested in the work or indeed in the period. Because of its combination of lively writing and scholarly erudition, I would recommend Wall's book for a wide variety of interest and knowledge levels. Wonderful Bedford series idea and terrific book.