pope, the rape of the lock

            Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock is not generally seen as a love story. The poem's title alone would not suggest a love story, but when the story behind the poem is looked into further, there is a love story that emerges.
             Pope was asked to write the story of Arabella Fermor and the curly tendril of hair that was cut by a man who was rumored to be one of her biggest suitors namely Robert, Lord Petre. These two were in a Roman Catholic religious circle that included John Caryll, the man that asked Pope to write this poem in hopes that the two feuding families would be able to see the humor in their squabble.
             The love story is hard to find in this poem. At first all that can be seen is the mock-heroic elements in this satire. Pope is exposing the pettiness that surrounds the society. The value placed on beauty and virtue is seen through the development in the Sylphs. Once the reader can get beyond the mock-heroic and the heroic couplet seen in the structure of the poem, another story can be seen or implied.
             There are many different places in which love is intertwined in the poem. Most of the time the poem is looking onto the surface of love, the virtues of love.
             "Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,.
             Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide;.
             If to her share some female errors fall,.
             Look on her face, and you"ll forget "em all.".
             Canto II. 15-18.
             Pope refers to the romance of the "belles" and "beaux", rather than women and men. Pope show the romanticism of a beautiful face being more than the errs of a personality.
             The real love story in The Rape of the Lock is not easily found but implied between the Baron (Robert, Lord Petre) and Belinda (Arabella Fermor). When the reader enters the story they are unclear of Belinda's feelings about the Baron except that she might be inclined to marry him. .
             What we get from Pope is that the Baron is so deeply moved by the appearance of Belinda, in particular the "sparkling white Cross she wore" on her "white breast," and of course by the ringlets that dangle on her "iv"ry neck.