English Literature / Unit 11 ENL 1007 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Rape of the Lock
Captions available
The idea
The Rape of the Lock, in five cantos by seventeen fourteen, is a mock epic on a real quarrel: a lord cut a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair. Pope gives the heroine, Belinda, epic machinery, guardian sylphs and a card game as battle, opening, "What dire offence from am'rous causes springs."
In practice
Epic grandeur, a stolen curl.
Where people slip
The mockery targets triviality, not epic.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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