The Rape of the Lock is the product of a society which had the good sense and good breeding to try to laugh away incipient quarrels, and which greeted with airy banter the indiscreet act of an enamoured young gallant,the kind of act which vulgarity meets with angry lampoons or rude violence.

" The Rape of the Lock, which is Pope's masterpiece, is almost a romantic poem, even though it is written in classical couplets.

The lines on Italy, on Venice, on Convents, have all the grace for which I contend as distinct from poetry, though united with the most beautiful; and the "Rape of the Lock," besides the originality of great part of the invention, is a standard of graceful writing.

Rape is almost always the crime of the poor, the hardworking, the uneducated and the abnormal.

Rape became a mode of government.

The Rape of the Lock is an exquisite piece of workmanship, breathing the very spirit of the time.

The Rape of the Lock is a masterpiece of its kind, and comes nearer to being a "creation" than anything else that Pope has written.