The Rape of the Lock

Arabella Fermor, a 19th-century print after Sir Peter

Lely's portrait of her
Lely s portrait of her

The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic

narrative poem written by Alexander
Pope.[1] One of the most commonly cited
examples of high burlesque, it was first
published anonymously in Lintot's
Miscellaneous Poems and Translations
(May 1712) in two cantos (334 lines); a
revised edition "Written by Mr. Pope"
followed in March 1714 as a five-canto
version (794 lines) accompanied by six
engravings. Pope boasted that this sold
more than three thousand copies in its
first four days.[2] The final form of the
poem appeared in 1717 with the addition
of Clarissa's speech on good humour. The
poem was much translated and
contributed to the growing popularity of
mock-heroic in Europe.

Description
The poem satirises a small incident by
comparing it to the epic world of the gods.
It was based on an actual event recounted
to the poet by Pope's friend, John Caryll.
Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre,
were both from aristocratic recusant
Catholic families, at a time in England
when, under such laws as the Test Act, all
denominations except Anglicanism
suffered legal restrictions and penalties.
(For example, Petre, being a Catholic,
could not take the place in the House of
Lords that would otherwise have been
rightfully his.) Petre had cut off a lock of
Arabella's hair without permission, and the
consequent argument had created a
breach between the two families. The
poem's title does not refer to the extreme
of sexual rape, but to an earlier alternative
definition of the word derived from the
Latin rapere (supine stem raptum), "to
snatch, to grab, to carry off"[3][4] —in this
case, the theft and carrying away of a lock
of hair. In terms of the sensibilities of the
age, however, even this non-consensual
personal invasion might be interpreted as
bringing dishonour.

Pope, also a Catholic, wrote the poem at

the request of friends in an attempt to
"comically merge the two" worlds, the
heroic with the social. He utilised the
character Belinda to represent Arabella
and introduced an entire system of
"sylphs", or guardian spirits of virgins, a
parodised version of the gods and
goddesses of conventional epic. Pope
derived his sylphs from the 17th-century
French Rosicrucian novel Comte de
Gabalis.[5] Pope, writing pseudonymously
as Esdras Barnivelt, also published A Key
to the Lock in 1714 as a humorous
warning against taking the poem too
seriously.[6]
"The New Star", illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for
The Rape of the Lock

Pope's poem uses the traditional high

stature of classical epics to emphasise the
triviality of the incident. The abduction of
Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a
lock of hair; the gods become minute
sylphs; the description of Achilles' shield
becomes an excursus on one of Belinda's
petticoats. He also uses the epic style of
invocations, lamentations, exclamations
and similes, and in some cases adds
parody to imitation by following the
framework of actual speeches in Homer's
Iliad. Although the poem is humorous at
times, Pope keeps a sense that beauty is
fragile, and emphasizes that the loss of a
lock of hair touches Belinda deeply.

The humour of the poem comes from the

storm in a teacup being couched within
the elaborate, formal verbal structure of an
epic poem. It is a satire on contemporary
society which showcases the lifestyle led
by some people of that age. Pope arguably
satirises it from within rather than looking
down judgmentally on the characters.
Belinda's legitimate rage is thus alleviated
and tempered by her good humour, as
directed by the character Clarissa.[7]

Dedicatory letter
Pope added to the second edition the
following dedicatory letter to Mrs. Arabella
Fermor:
Madam,

It will be in vain to deny that I

have some regard for this piece,
since I dedicate it to You. Yet you
may bear me witness, it was
intended only to divert a few
young Ladies, who have good
sense and good humour enough
to laugh not only at their sex's
little unguarded follies, but at
their own. But as it was
communicated with the air of a
secret, it soon found its way into
the world. An imperfect copy
having been offered to a
Bookseller, you had the good
nature for my sake to consent to
the publication of one more
correct: This I was forced to,
before I had executed half my
design, for the Machinery was
entirely wanting to complete it.

The Machinery, Madam, is a

term invented by the Critics, to
signify that part which the
Deities, Angels, or Dæmons are
made to act in a poem: For the
ancient poets are in one respect
like many modern ladies: let an
action be never so trivial in
itself, they always make it
appear of the utmost
importance. These Machines I
determined to raise on a very
new and odd foundation, the
Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.
I know how disagreeable it is to
make use of hard words before a
lady; but 'tis so much the
concern of a poet to have his
works understood and
particularly by your sex, that
you must give me leave to
explain two or three difficult
terms.

The Rosicrucians are the people

I must bring you acquainted
with. The best account I know of
them is in a French book called
Le Comte de Gabalis, which both
in its title and size is so like a
novel, that many of the fair sex
have read it for one by mistake.
According to these gentlemen,
the four elements are inhabited
by spirits, which they call
Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and
Salamanders. The Gnomes or
Dæmons of Earth delight in
mischief; but the Sylphs, whose
habitation is in the air, are the
best-conditioned creatures
imaginable. For they say, any
mortals may enjoy the most
intimate familiarities with these
gentle spirits, upon a condition
very easy to all true adepts, an
inviolate preservation of
Chastity.

As to the following Cantos, all

the passages of them are as
fabulous as the Vision at the
beginning or the
 Transformation at the end;
(except the loss of your Hair,
which I always mention with
reverence). The human persons
are as fictitious as the airy ones,
and the character of Belinda, as
it is now managed, resembles
you in nothing but in Beauty.

Summary
Belinda sails down the Thames to Hampton Court
attended by sylphs; a copperplate engraving by Anna
Maria Werner (1744)

In the beginning of this mock-epic, Pope

declares that a "dire offence" (Canto 1 line
1) has been committed. A lord has
assaulted a "gentle belle" (line 8), causing
her to reject him. He then proceeds to tell
the story of this offence.

While Belinda is still asleep, her guardian

Sylph Ariel forewarns her that "some dread
event impends". Belinda then awakes and
gets ready for the day with the help of her
maid, Betty. The Sylphs, though unseen,
also contribute: "These set the head, and
those divide the hair, some fold the sleeve,
whilst others plait the gown" (146–147).
Here Pope also describes Belinda's two
locks of hair "which graceful hung behind".
The Baron, one of Belinda's suitors, greatly
admires these locks and conspires to steal
one. Building an altar, he places on it "all
the trophies of his former loves" (line 40),
sets them on fire and fervently prays "soon
to obtain, and long possess" (line 44) the
lock.

Ariel, disturbed by the impending event

although not knowing what it will be,
summons many sylphs to her and
instructs them to guard Belinda from
anything that may befall her, whether she
"forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,
Or lost her heart, or necklace, at a ball"
(line 108–109). So protected, Belinda
arrives at Hampton Court and is invited to
play a game of ombre.

The conspiring Baron acquires a pair of

scissors and tries to snip off one of her
locks but is prevented by the watchful
Sylphs. This happens three times, but in
the end the Baron succeeds (also cutting a
Sylph in two although Pope reassures us,
parodying a passage in Paradise Lost, that
"airy substance soon unites again" [line
152]). When Belinda discovers her lock is
gone, she falls into a tantrum, while the
Baron celebrates his victory.

A gnome named Umbriel now journeys to

the Cave of Spleen and from the Queen
receives a bag of "sighs, sobs, and
passions, and the war of tongues" (canto 4
line 84) and a vial filled "with fainting fears,
soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing
tears" (line 85–86) and brings them to
Belinda. Finding her dejected in the arms
of the woman Thalestris, Umbriel pours
the contents over them both.
Many people, moved by Belinda's grief,
demand the lock back, but the Baron is
unrepentant and refuses. Clarissa
admonishes them to keep their good
humour, but they will not listen and instead
a battle ensues with glares, songs and
wits as weapons. Belinda fights with the
Baron and throws snuff up his nose to
subdue him. When she demands that he
restore the lock, however, it is nowhere to
be found. It has been made a constellation
and is destined to outlast the contestants.

Translations
Translations of the poem into French,
Italian and German were all made in the
first half of the 18th century. Others in
those languages followed later, as well as
in Dutch, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian,
Polish, Swedish and Danish.[8] The work
had originally come to European notice
through an anonymous prose version, La
Boucle de Cheveux Enlevée, published
anonymously in 1728[9] and now ascribed
either to Marthe-Marguerite, Marquise de
Caylus, or to Pierre Desfontaines. Despite
there being a playful French model for this
kind of writing in Boileau's Lutrin, the
translator claims of Pope's work in the
preface that "I do not believe that there
can be found in our language anything
more ingenious, in this playful genre."[10] A
verse translation by Jean-François
Marmontel followed in 1746.[11]

Der Lockenraub, the 1744 German translation of

Pope's poem by Luise Gottsched

The first German translation, Der

merckwürdige Haar-Locken-Raub (1739),
was a rendering of the French prose
version of 1728. Luise Gottsched's verse
translation, Der Lockenraub, was begun in
the 1730s, again using a French prose
version. However, she revised it totally
once she managed to obtain the original
text in English and in this way pioneered
an interest in English literature in the
German-language area. From then on,
"Pope became very popular as a model for
German poets from the 1750s onwards
and remained an important source of
inspiration throughout the second half of
the 18th century," and in particular as a
model for mock heroic poetry.[12]

Early Italian verse translations of the poem

include Andrea Bonducci's Il Riccio Rapito
(Florence 1739), followed by Antonio
Schinella Conti's version, begun much
earlier and finally published in Venice in
1751.[13] The vogue for Pope's work went
on to blossom at the start of the 19th
century with separate translations by
Federico Federici (Faziola 1819),[14]
Vincenzo Benini (Milan 1819),[15] Sansone
Uzielli (Livorno 1822),[16] and Antonio
Beduschi (Milan 1830).[17]

Scandinavian versions appeared near the

start of the 19th century, beginning with
the Swedish Våldet på Belindas låck
(Stockholm, 1797) by Johan Lorens
Odhelius (1737–1816). It was followed in
1819 by Den bortröfvade hårlocken by
Jonas Magnus Stjernstolpe (1777–1831),
and by the Danish imitation Belinde, eller
den røvede Haarlok by Anton Martini
(1773–1847) in 1829.[18]

Parody and interpretation

In 1717 Giles Jacob published his bawdy
parody, The Rape of the Smock, the plot of
which turns on voyeurism and enforced
seduction,[19] building on erotic
undertones present in Pope's poem which
were to be taken up by its illustrators, and
reached an apotheosis in Aubrey
Beardsley's work.[20]
The 1714 edition of The Rape of the Lock
and those that followed from Lintot's press
had come with six woodcuts designed by
Louis Du Guernier.[21] Although the work of
this artist has been described as
unimaginative,[22] he goes beyond his
literal brief in making Belinda sleep in
unwarranted décolletage in the first canto,
while in the second giving the "painted
vessel" on its way down the Thames the
tilted perspective of the Ship of Fools.
Furthermore, Du Guernier's frontispiece
owes its iconography to a print by Étienne
Baudet after a painting by Francesco
Albani of Venus at her Toilette, making for
an identification of Belinda with the
goddess.[23]

The German translation of the poem

published from Leipzig in 1744 had five
copperplate engravings by Anna Maria
Werner (1689–1753), the court painter of
Saxony.[24] It has been observed, however,
that the places they depict are not
specifically English and that the scene of
the game of ombre in Canto 3 is "clearly
based on a Leipzig coffee-house",
complete with lapdogs tumbling on the
floor.[25]

Sir Plume demands the restoration of the lock, an oil

painting by Charles Robert Leslie, 1854

Meanwhile, in Britain most illustrations of

the work were descending into "high kitsch
and low camp".[26] The 1798 edition, for
example, illustrated by a variety of
contemporary artists, is particularly noted
now for Thomas Stothard's watercolour in
which fairies are pictured with wings.
Advised by William Blake to make the
sylphs like butterflies, Stothard decided to
"paint the wing from the butterfly itself"
and immediately went out to catch one.[27]

Oil paintings by two artists rise a little

above this judgment. Henry Fuseli's erotic
The Dream of Belinda (1789–1790) goes
beyond the actual episode to incorporate
other imagery from the poem and some
details peculiar only to Fuseli, such as the
white moths in copulation in the lower
foreground.[28] He also illustrated the Cave
of Spleen episode from Canto 4, but this
met with contemporary scepticism[29] and
the original is now lost.[30] Only Thomas
Holloway's print remains to suggest that
critics might have been right in seeing in it
more "burlesque than sublimity".[31] In the
following century, Charles Robert Leslie's
1854 period piece, Sir Plume Demands the
Restoration of the Lock, takes place in a
cluttered drawing room in which the kind
of lap dog present in many previous
pictures feeds from a dish on the floor.

The nine photo-engravings with which

Aubrey Beardsley "embroidered" the 1896
edition of the poem[32] drew on the French
rococo style, in which there was a
contemporary revival of interest.[33] Well
received at the time, their enduring
popularity is deserved for the way they
reinterpret the poem in ways only a very
few had managed earlier.

Influence
Pope's fanciful conclusion to his work,
translating the stolen lock into the sky,
where "'midst the stars [it] inscribes
Belinda's name", contributed to the
eventual naming of three of the moons of
Uranus after characters from The Rape of
the Lock: Umbriel, Ariel, and Belinda. The
first two are major bodies and were named
in 1852 by John Herschel, a year after their
discovery. The inner satellite Belinda was
not discovered until 1986 and is the only
other of the planet's 27 moons taken from
Pope's poem rather than Shakespeare's
works.
Modern adaptations of The Rape of the
Lock include Deborah Mason's opera-
ballet, on which the composer worked
since 2002.[34] It had its premiere as an
opera-oratorio in June 2016, performed by
the Spectrum Symphony of New York and
the New York Baroque Dance
Company.[35][36] There had also been a
2006 performance at Sheffield University's
Drama Studio of a musical work based on
Pope's poem composed by Jenny
Jackson.[37]

References
1. Text online from Adelaide University
2. Sherburn, G., Eed. Correspondence of
Alexander Pope, Oxford University
Press, 1956, I, 201.
3. Corinne J. Saunders, Rape and
Ravishment in the Literature of
Medieval England, Boydell & Brewer,
2001, p. 20.
4. Keith Burgess-Jackson, A Most
Detestable Crime: New Philosophical
Essays on Rape, Oxford University
Press, New York, 1999, p. 16.
5. Seeber, Edward D. (1944). "Sylphs and
Other Elemental Beings in French
Literature since Le Comte de Gabalis
(1670)". PMLA. 59 (1): 71–83.
JSTOR 458845 .
6. "A key to the lock: Or, a treatise
proving, beyond all contradiction, the
dangerous tendency of a late poem,
entituled, The rape of the lock, to
government and religion" .
7. Ijaz, Muhammad. "RiseNotes-Rape of
the Lock" . www.risenotes.com.
8. Pat Rogers, The Alexander Pope
Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press 2004,
p.242
9. Pope, Alexander; DESFONTAINES,
Pierre François GUYOT; Caylus.),
Marthe Marguerite Hippolyte de
TUBIÈRES DE GRIMOARD DE PESTELS
DE LEVIS (Marchioness de (24 August
2018). "La Boucle de Cheveux enlevée;
poëme héroï-comique de Monsieur
Pope. Traduit [in prose] de l'Anglois
par Mr. ** [i.e. P. F. Guyot
Desfontaines]" . F. Le Breton – via
Google Books.
10. Alexander Pope: The Critical Heritage,
Routledge 1995, ch.23
11. Available in Google Books,p.93ff
12. Hilary Brown, introduction to the
MHRA reprint , London 2014
13. Giuseppe Parinis Il Giorno im Kontext
der europäischen Aufklärung,
Würzburg 2006, p.236
14. Pope, Alexander (24 August 2018). "Il
Riccio rapito, di Alessandro Pope,
traduzione di Federico Federici, ..."
Stamp. Faziola – via Google Books.
15. Pope, Alexander (24 August 2018). "Il
riccio rapito ; tradotto ed illustrato da
G. Vincenzo Benini" . Bettoni – via
Google Books.
16. Pope, Alexander (24 August 2018). "Il
riccio rapito" . G. Masi – via Google
Books.
17. Pope, Alexander (24 August 2018). "Il
Riccio Rapito ... tradotto da A.
Beduschi" . Soc. tip. de'classici italiani
– via Google Books.
18. "Dansk oversættelse af Alexander
Popes "The rape of the Lock" " .
biblioteksvagten.dk.
19. "The Rape of the Smock. An Heroi-
comic Poem. In Two Cantos. [By Giles
Jacob.]" . J. Brown. 24 August 1768 –
via Google Books.
20. Barbara M. Benedict, Curiosity: A
Cultural History of Early Modern
Inquiry, University of Chicago 2002,
pp.79-81
21. Pope, Alexander. "The Rape of the
Lock" – via Wikisource.
22. Morris R. Brownell, Eighteenth-Century
Studies 16.1, 1982, p.91
23. Timothy Erwin, Textual Vision:
Augustan Design and the Invention of
Eighteenth-Century British Culture,
Bucknell University 2015, pp.17-58
24. "A new audience for Pope - Simon
Beattie" .
www.simonbeattie.kattare.com.
25. Hilary Brown's introduction to Luise
Gottsched, Der Lockenraub, MHRA
2014, p.12
26. Robert Halsband, The Rape of the
Lock and its Illustrations, OUP 1980,
p.77
27. Jayne Elizabeth Lewis, Air's
Appearance: Literary Atmosphere in
British Fiction, 1660-1794, University
of Chicago 2012, p.88
28. Vancouver Art Gallery, p.4
29. Luisa Cale, Fuseli's Milton Gallery,
Oxford 2006, p.56
30. "The Cave of Spleen, with Umbriel
Receiving from the Goddess the Bag
and Vial" . British Museum.
31. "The Cave of Spleen, with Umbriel
Receiving from the Goddess the Bag
and Vial" . British Museum.
32. "The Rape of the Lock" .
ebooks.adelaide.edu.au.
33. "Favourite Find: Aubrey Beardsley's
illustrations for 'The Rape of the
Lock' " . 19 July 2013.
34. "the rape of the lock opera" .
debmasonstudio.com.
35. " "Alexander Pope's The Rape of the
Lock" Opera-Oratorio by Deborah
Mason" .
36. A performance of the last act is
available on YouTube
37. Sheffield, University of. "All that jazz…
with a bit of opera and theatre mixed
in - Latest - News - The University of
Sheffield" . www.sheffield.ac.uk.

External links

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The Rape of the Lock

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The Rape of the Lock at the Eighteenth-
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The Rape of the Lock: Study Guide With
Complete Text and Detailed Explanatory
Notes
The Rape of the Lock: Study
Guide,Summary, Selected Quotes,
Themes and Detailed Explanatory
Notes
The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems
at Project Gutenberg
The Rape of the Lock public domain
audiobook at LibriVox
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