The Rape of the Lock (Worldview Critical Editions)

This edition of The Rape of the Lock provides a fully annotated text of the poem in its final five-canto version. The original two-canto version is included for comparison, as well as several short poems and extracts from Pope's other works illustrating his attitudes to women, his views on poetic technique and on Britain's commercial expansion and empire. The critical remarks of Dennis (1728) and Johnson(1781) are included. The introduction places the poem in the context of Pope's early career, his relationship with women, and his audience. There are sections on the mock-heroic and on the heroic couplet, and discussion of the elements in the poem that prevent modern readers from accepting it simply as an attack on the female pride. The critical essays include a questioning of the apparent 'moral' of the poem, a discussion of its effect on female readers then and now, Marxist and feminist approaches and an essay on the supernatural 'machinery.'