Lewis Theobald

Lewis Theobald (1688 - 1744), British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire.

Theobald the Dunce

Theobald (pronounced in its own time as "Tibbald," though most often pronounced as spelled in the current day) was rewarded for his public rebuke of Pope by becoming the first hero of Pope's The Dunciad in 1728. In the Dunciad Variorum, Pope goes much farther. In the apparatus to the poem, he collects ill comments made on Theobald by others, gives evidence that Theobald wrote letters to Mist's Journal praising himself, and argues that Theobald had meant his Shakespeare Restored as an ambush. One of the damning bits of evidence came from John Dennis, who wrote of Theobald's Ovid: "There is a notorious Ideot . . . who from an under-spur-leather to the Law, is become an under-strapper to the Play-house, who has lately burlesqu'd the Metamorphoses of Ovid by a vile Translation" (Remarks on Pope's Homer p. 90). Until the second version of The Dunciad in 1741, Theobald remained the chief of the "Dunces" who led the way toward night (see the translatio stultitia) by debasing public taste and bringing "Smithfield muses to the ears of kings." Pope attacks Theobald's plagiarism and work in vulgar drama directly, but the reason for the fury was the Shakespeare Restored. Even though Theobald's work is invaluable, Pope succeeded in so utterly obliterating the character of the man that he is known by those who do not work with Shakespeare only as a dunce, as a dusty, pedantic, and dull witted scribe.

Related Topics:
The Dunciad - 1728 - John Dennis - Ovid - 1741 - Translatio stultitia

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