The rape of the lock as a masterpiece of poetic art.

Modern critics consider The Rape of the Lock to be the supreme example of mock-heroic verse in the English language. Written in heroic couplets, the poem was most likely composed during the late summer of 1711 and first published in the May edition of Lintot's Miscellany in 1712. The original version of the poem contained 334 lines in two cantos. A more elaborate version appeared two years later, extending the poem to 794 lines in five cantos; a slight final revision was completed for the poem's inclusion in Pope's Works (1717). Inspired by an actual event, The Rape of the Lock recounts the circumstances surrounding the theft of a lock of a young woman's hair by an impassioned male admirer, which caused a rift between the families involved. The poem was intended to restore harmonious relations between the estranged families. Subtitled “an heroi-comical poem,” The Rape of the Lock treats the petty matter in full-blown epic style, which results in a great deal of humor. It uses the elevated heroic language that John Dryden, Pope's literary forebear, had perfected in his translation of Virgil and incorporates amusing parodies of passages from John Milton's Paradise Lost, Vergil's Aeneid, and Homer's Iliad, which Pope was translating at the time. Celebrated as a masterstroke of English originality, The Rape of the Lock established Pope as a master of metrics and a sophisticated satirist.

Sorry, this is not a proper answer to my question.

Okay, you asked about the Rape of the lock" as a masterpiece of poetic art. If you read through the response you can consider,

"the supreme example of mock-heroic verse in the English language. Written in heroic couplets, the poem was most likely composed during..."

"Subtitled “an heroi-comical poem,” The Rape of the Lock treats the petty matter in full-blown epic style, which results in a great deal of humour..."

"Celebrated as a masterstroke of English originality, The Rape of the Lock established Pope as a master of metrics and a sophisticated satirist."

This is poetic art. If you have another definition for it you might try to search somewhere else.

Thank you. Could you please describe it in more detail ? My question is not considering it as a mock epic.