ABSTRACT
The poetic idiom of Pope is a frail-seeming instrument on first acquaintance: its compass looks narrower than it is, and it seems to lack dynamics. Pope grew up an outsider, from birth a Roman Catholic and from infancy a cripple. His formative years were spent in the fortunate seclusion of Windsor Forest; but by the time he came up to London in his teens, he was already firmly set on a course towards success and fulfilment. Poetry, of course, was the channel through which his ambitions would be realized. The years of careful preparation were not wasted. For Pope, polish was to mean not just a superficial glitter, but an enticing and expressive glaze like the burnish on a precious metal. By 1711 Pope was making his way, and he enjoyed his first spectacular success with An Essay on Criticism. The essential trick of The Rape of the Lock is to feminize and domesticize the epic.
