The Rape of the Lock (Italian title: Il ricciolo rapito) is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. 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. 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.
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👉 The Rape of the Lock in the context of Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for his translations of Homer.
Pope is often quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, some of his verses having entered common parlance (e.g. "damning with faint praise" or "to err is human; to forgive, divine").
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The Rape of the Lock in the context of Burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word is loaned from French and derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.
Burlesque overlaps with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical form, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian era. The word "burlesque" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics. Contrasting examples of literary burlesque are Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Samuel Butler's Hudibras. An example of musical burlesque is Richard Strauss's 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra. Examples of theatrical burlesques include W. S. Gilbert's Robert the Devil and the A. C. Torr – Meyer Lutz shows, including Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué.
The Rape of the Lock in the context of Moons of Uranus
There are 29 known moons of the planet Uranus. The 27 with names are named after characters that appear in, or are mentioned in William Shakespeare's plays and Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock. Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: fourteen inner moons, five major moons, and ten irregular moons. The inner and major moons all have prograde orbits and are cumulatively classified as regular moons. In contrast, the orbits of the irregular moons are distant, highly inclined, and mostly retrograde.
The inner moons are small dark bodies that share common properties and origins with Uranus's rings. The five major moons are ellipsoidal, indicating that they reached hydrostatic equilibrium at some point in their past (and may still be in equilibrium), and four of them show signs of internally driven processes such as canyon formation and volcanism on their surfaces. The largest of these five, Titania, is 1,578 km in diameter and the eighth-largest moon in the Solar System, about one-twentieth the mass of the Earth's Moon. The orbits of the regular moons are nearly coplanar with Uranus's equator, which is tilted 97.77° to its orbit. Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet.
The Rape of the Lock in the context of Arabella Fermor
Arabella Fermor (1696–1737) was the daughter of a marriage between two recusant Roman Catholic families in Protestant England, the Fermors of Oxfordshire and the Brownes of Berkshire. The family seat was Tusmore House, noted for its formal gardens.
Her beauty was made famous by her starring role in Alexander Pope's famous poem The Rape of the Lock. After her beau Robert Petre brought about the dissolution of their engagement by stealing a lock of her hair (satirically related in the poem), Fermor married Francis Perkins of Ufton Court around 1715. She bore one daughter, Arabella, who died as a child, and five sons.