The Rape of the Lock

"The Rape of the Lock" is not on the top of my list of favorites but shows an excellent satire, once again making it a great example of a Restoration Period work. This poem exhibits all the traditional elements of an epic while exhibiting a strong satire on a real argument that occurred between two families that Alexander Pope actually knew. There is an invocation of Muse, action of the deities, an epic prophecy, an arming for battle, a sacrifice to the gods, an inspirational speech, a warrior count, a battle or single combat, an epic banquet or feast, and a descent into the underworld to retrieve some sort of treasure. "The Rape of the Lock" does all of these things except the entire poem is about a man that wants to cut off a piece of a beautiful woman's hair, she gets mad and there is a huge fight that happens afterward because he does cut if off (the sad thing is, he does not get to keep the lock of hair and is actually stabbed by a hair pin - true irony). What Pope said in "The Rape of the Lock" needed to be said to those two families feuding over a minor lock of hair that was cut off, but this story goes to show you how vain society was during the eighteenth century.