An ingenious satire of the battle of the sexes and the follies of a self-centred young lady, The Rape of the Lock, together with its mock-interpretation A Key to the Lock, is in fact a subtle commentary on the contemporary social world and high-society preoccupations, and a cleverly veiled proposal for reform. When Belinda awakes from a strange dream and sets about her favorite occupation, her toilette, little does she suspect that a tragedy of Homeric proportions is about to unfold around her. As she walks through the beau monde, admired as a goddess and protected by an entire host of sylphs, she is unaware that evil powers are at work to rob her of a precious lock of hair. Belinda must command all her female guile to protect this lock, for once surrendered, her life will never be the same again. Alexander Pope is the greatest English poet of the 18th century, with The Rape of the Lock universally regarded as his masterpiece.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant edition of an immensely witty work!,
This review is from: The Rape of the Lock and a Key to the Lock (Hesperus Classics) (Paperback)
Alexander Pope's faux heroic poem in five cantos is truly a gem! Both hilarious in its elegant language juxtaposed with a "trivial cause," Pope's <i>Rape of the Lock</i> shall remain a beauty of English poetry.Beyond the poem, this particular edition is, from my experience, one of the better editions on the market. The concise foreword by Peter Ackroyd is well-written and serves as an excellent historical and biographical introduction to the work. There are two other perks to this edition that I'd like to note: one is the inclusion of both the 1712 two canto version as well as the later more complete five canto version. The second is that this edition includes Pope's satirical response to critics' response to his poem; a prose piece entitled <i>A Key to the Lock</i> which is very much worth reading. The only other edition that I would recommend is a more scholarly composite: the Bedford Cultural Edition (ISBN: 0-312-11569-5). This edition includes a complete cultural and historical background along with the complete text (including the original version). Beyond that, this edition includes many cultural contexts: "The Poetic World," "The Social World," and "The Political World." This is the complete scholar's edition.
If you are looking for the critical compendia, go for this, if you are looking simply for a concise background of the poem as well as the text with some notes, the go for the former edition.
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