Poetry About Nothing

Deflating postmodern irony has been a long time coming. Donald Nichol sees it aborning already in the heyday of classicism, with Alexander Pope’s third, and last, great poem.

” The Rape of the Lock represents Pope’s acknowledgement of the triumph of style over substance – a mock-salute to the spirit of inconsequentiality, which seemed to be on the rise in the early eighteenth century (vide John Gay’s Trivia ) and looks ahead to Seinfeldian comedy, the great show about nothing, a celebration of the quotidian where the minor itches of life are scratched large. It was to be the last major original poem of Pope’s early career.”