Who wrote the mock-epic poem 'The Rape of the Lock'?

Alexander Pope wrote the mock-epic poem “The Rape of the Lock.” The poem transforms a minor social dispute—a lock of hair being cut from a young woman—into a grand parody of classical epic.

Pope based the poem on an incident involving Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre, whose families were connected socially. His friend John Caryll asked Pope to write something that might reconcile the offended parties. Pope first published the poem anonymously in 1712, in two cantos, then expanded it into five cantos in 1714. The final version appeared in 1717.

The word “rape” in the title uses an older meaning: to seize, snatch, or carry away, rather than its modern primary sense. The poem’s mock-heroic effect comes from treating fashionable pastimes as if they were battles, while supernatural beings called sylphs guard the heroine. A common mix-up is with poems by Swift or Dryden, but Pope is the author.