ENG206 (Spring 2009) Eskin

Alexander Pope and The Rape of the Lock

This page consists of links found by my students in the Spring of 2009 to assist them as they read and then considered Pope's Rape of the Lock.  If there are any problems accessing these sites, please contact me.

From Books and Writers: Alexander Pope

-Joe Citro

This article just describes his life into more detail than our books did. It talks about his Mother and father for example.

-Matt Ruger

This website is an informatory one, discussing Pope's childhood, his parents, his religion, and his works. In the article you read that Pope was the only son of his parents, his mother coming from a divided Catholic/Protestant family, and his father who converted to Catholicism. We learn he wrote his first versus at the age of 12 and was expelled from his school for writing a satire about one of the teachers. Pope was very short due to contracting a form of tuberculosis through infected milk and retained his boyish appearance into his middle age. Pope, too, was Catholic and, like other Catholics of the time was ridiculed and punished for his beliefs. Also, Pope had little if no patronage because of his religion. The rest of the article talks about some of Pope's works, including the Rape of the Lock.

-Kelly Sherman

Victorian Web: Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock, An Introduction

This website had some very useful information that helped understand the reasoning behind the "Rape of the Lock." It had a mini background of Pope and talked about the "Rape of the Lock" and how and why it was written. It helps explain some of the reasons for the way the poem was written.

--Lindsey Powell

Rape of the Lock: Homepage

It is a good site, has the entire poem with annotations and explanations broken down by canto.
--Garrett Rocha

Representative Poetry On-line: Alexander Pope

The most helpful website I've found in researching Alexander Pope was from the University of Toronto in Canada. It listed and  organized his literary works and also gave an outline of details about his life as well as a short biography.
 
The website biography on Pope described his poetic works as well as his personal life. The outline of biographical information included everything from the languages he knew to where he is buried.

-Brandy Flint