This poem is called the Rape of the Lock--rape
meaning theft, and the lock not the lock of a door, but a lock of
hair.
A gay young lord had stolen a lock of a beautiful young lady's
hair, and she was so angry about it that there was a coolness
between the two families. A friend then came to Pope to ask him
if he could not do something to appease the angry lady. So Pope
took up his pen and wrote a mock-heroic poem making friendly fun
of the whole matter. But although Pope's intention was kindly
his success was not complete. The families did not entirely see
the joke, and Pope writes to a friend, "The celebrated lady
herself is offended, and, what is stranger, not at herself, but
me."
But the poem remains one of the most delightful of airy trifles
in our language. And that it should be so airy is a triumph of
Pope's genius, for it is written in the heroic couplet, one of
the most mechanical forms of English verse.
Addison called it "a delicious little thing" and the very salt of
wit.
Another and later writer says of it--"It is the most exquisite
specimen of filigree work ever invented.
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