Whatever else it is, Pope’s poem is beautiful, light and lyric. It belongs completely to the extraordinary energetic time in which it was written. It’s also something to think that someone might be asked to write a poem to bring a divided couple and two great families together again.
It appeared first in 1712 with just two cantos and with no author’s name attached, it was published again in 1714 with the full five cantos and under Pope’s name. The poem treats a small incident with mock heroic style a relatively minor incident – hence its often quoted first lines.
“What dire offence from amorous causes springs, what mighty contests rise from trivial things…’
Johnson in his ‘Lives of the Poets’ had no doubt of its beauty and also reports the circumstances of its composition.
Arabella Fermor was a noted beauty and was engaged to Lord Peter when he work a step too far by cutting without permission a lock from her hair. A rift between the couple and between the families followed and it was suggested to Pope a poem could be an instrument of reconciliation. Here’s Pope’s preface…
Its virtue in the end is as enduring poetry because there was no reconciliation; Arabella Fermor married someone else and her family, according to Johnson were less than delighted.
More on ‘The Rape of the Lock’ next time.
The Solitary Reader 