ABSTRACT
The chapter on mock-heroic poetry discusses the genre’s main features as well as its geographical and temporal evolution. Although it focuses on its most outstanding works – Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712/1714/1717) and The Dunciad (1728/1729/1743) – it traces its origins in the classical Graeco-Roman period, as well as in late seventeenth-century France and England, pointing out their main similarities and differences regarding their subject matter, tone and conventions. The genre’s key texts are set in their political, ideological and literary contexts, and due attention is paid to the reasons behind their evolution and the features of the genre’s offshoots.
