The Dunciad

The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version (the "three book" Dunciad) was published in 1728. The second version, where Pope confirmed his authorship of the work, appeared in the Dunciad Variorum in 1735. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a different hero, appeared in 1743. The poem celebrates the goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay and imbecility and tastelessness to the kingdom of Great Britain.

Origins

Pope told Joseph Spence (in Spence's Anecdotes) that he had been working on a general satire of Dulness, with characters of contemporary scribblers, for some time and that it was the publication of Shakespeare Restored by Lewis Theobald that spurred him to complete the poem and publish it in 1728. Certainly Pope had written characters of the various "Dunces" prior to 1728. In his Essay on Criticism, Pope characterizes some witless critics. In his various Moral Epistles, Pope likewise draws characters of contemporary authors of poor taste. However, the general structure owes its origins to, on the one hand, the communal project of the Scribblerians and, on the other, the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe by John Dryden.

Related Topics:
Lewis Theobald - John Dryden

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The Scribblerian club comprised Jonathan Swift, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Robert Harley, and Thomas Parnell most consistently, and the group met during the spring and summer of 1714. One group project was to write a satire of contemporary abuses in learning of all sorts, where the authors would combine to write the biography of the group's fictional founder, Martin Scriblerus. The resulting The Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus contained a number of parodies of the most lavish mistakes in scholarship.

Related Topics:
Jonathan Swift - John Gay - John Arbuthnot - Robert Harley - Thomas Parnell

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For the mock-heroic structure of the Dunciad itself, however, the idea seems to have come most clearly from John Dryden's MacFlecknoe. MacFlecknoe is a short poem celebrating the apotheosis of Thomas Shadwell, whom Dryden nominates as the dullest poet of the age. Shadwell is the spiritual son of Flecknoe, an obscure Irish poet of low fame, and he takes his place as the favorite of the goddess Dulness.

Related Topics:
John Dryden's - MacFlecknoe - Apotheosis - Thomas Shadwell

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Pope takes this idea, of the personified goddess of Dulness being at war with reason, darkness at war with light, and extends it to a full Aeneid parody. His poem celebrates a war, rather than a mere victory, and a process of ignorance, and Pope picks as his champion of all things insipid Lewis Theobald (1728 and '32) and Colley Cibber (1742).

Related Topics:
Aeneid - Parody - Colley Cibber

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