The Dunciad by Alexander Pope
"The Dunciad," written by Alexander Pope, is a satirical mock epic that critiques the literary culture of the early 18th century. Inspired by John Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe," the poem spans three books, later expanded to four, and centers on the theme of dullness, personified by the goddess Dulness, who oversees the realm of mediocrity in literature. Initially, the protagonist is the scholar Lewis Theobald, but in later revisions, playwright Colley Cibber takes this role as the epitome of dullness.
Pope utilizes grandiose language and classical references to parody epic conventions, as he describes the absurdity of literary contests and the ineptitude of contemporary authors. Key elements include an underworld journey that echoes Virgil's "Aeneid" and various allegorical figures that represent the decline of wit and intellect. The fourth book shifts focus from individuals to the broader institutions that foster mediocrity, highlighting the pervasive influence of dullness over art, science, and society.
While "The Dunciad" contains humor and sharp criticism, its relevance is sometimes obscured by its historical context. Despite this, its underlying themes about the dangers of intellectual decline resonate universally, making it an enduring work in the mock-heroic tradition.
The Dunciad by Alexander Pope
First published: 1728-1743
Type of work: Poetry
Type of plot: Mock-heroic
Time of plot: Eighteenth century
Locale: England and the underworld
Principal Characters
Dulness , a goddessTibbald , hero of the first edition, a Shakespearean scholarColley Cibber , hero of the second edition, playwright, producer, and poet laureate
The Work
When Alexander Pope set out to criticize the general literary climate of his time and to avenge the slights given his own work by other writers, he took the theme of John Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe (1682), in which the poetaster Thomas Shadwell is crowned ruler of the Kingdom of Nonsense, and expanded it to make a true mock epic of three books. He added a fourth book when he rewrote the poem in 1742. The Dunciad acclaims the goddess Dulness, daughter of Chaos and Night, and her chosen prince. In the first edition the prince of dullness is the scholar Lewis Theobald (Tibbald); in the second edition he is Colley Cibber, playwright and poet laureate.
This poem lacks the close-knit quality of Pope’s other fine mock epic, The Rape of the Lock (1712, 1714). The Dunciad is longer, and the fact that the hero appears only at intervals explains a certain disunity. Tibbald-Cibber appears at the middle of book one, is present only as a spectator at the epic games described in book 2, and merely dreams the trip to the underworld, modeled on that of Aeneas in book four of Vergil’s Aeneid (c. 29–19 b.c.e.). The important points in the poem are made in the descriptive passages in these episodes and in conversations that contain criticism of individuals and trends.
Pope relied, for satirical effect, on the classical epic as his model. The Dunciad, like The Rape of the Lock, begins with a parody of the Aeneid:
The mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings
The invocation is appropriately directed not at a muse but at the Patricians, the patrons whose purses inspire dull writing. The dedication to the author’s friend Jonathan Swift that follows is an eighteenth century, rather than a classic, convention.
Pope describes in detail the abode of Dulness and the allegorical figures gathered around her throne: Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Poetic Justice, who is weighing truth with gold and “solid pudding against empty praise.” The gods are notoriously interested in the affairs of mortals; Dulness looks out upon the ingredients of dull writing and the numerous creators of it. Her eye lights upon the hero, who is raising to her an altar of tremendous tomes of his writing. She anoints him as king of her realm, and the nation croaks Aesop’s line, “God save King Log.”
In the second book Pope designs appropriate contests for his various groups of enemies. The booksellers race to win a phantom poet. A patron is designated for the poet who tickles best, but he is carried off by an unknown sycophantic secretary. Journalists swim through the muck of the Thames River:
Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around
As a final test the goddess promises her “amplest powers” to anyone who can remain awake as he listens to the verses of “Three College Sophs, and three pert Templars.” The book ends with the whole company lying asleep.
Grandiose heroic couplets and numerous parallels with classical visits to the underworld fill the third book. John Taylor, the Water Poet, replaces the ferryman Charon; Elkanah Settle, a Restoration poet, takes Anchises’ part in showing the hero the future of Dulness and her offspring. The high point of this book is the crowning of Tibbald-Cibber with a poppy wreath by Bavius, prototype of the worst of poets from ancient times.
The 1742 Dunciad, centering on the triumph of Dulness over England, reveals a slightly more mature outlook in the poet than does the earlier version. Tibbald was the object of a vindictive attack, occasioned by his criticism of Pope’s edition of William Shakespeare. Cibber is representative of the dull poet; as laureate he was well known for his poor occasional verse. The fourth book is far more concerned with the institutions promoting the rise of dullness than with individuals. The more frequent use of classical names, rather than contemporary ones, indicates the poet’s movement toward universality.
The last book is almost an entity in itself. It opens with a new invocation, to Chaos and Night. The pseudo-learned notes, effective satire written by Pope, point out the precedents for a second invocation when an important new matter is introduced. Evil omens presage the coming destruction as Dulness ascends her throne and Cibber reclines in her lap, making his only appearance in this book.
Around the goddess are Science, Wit, Logic, Rhetoric, and other abstractions in chains, reminiscent of several scenes in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). Various personages appear to tell of Dulness’s victory over the many arts and institutions. First to come is a harlot representing the Italian opera. She rejoices in the banishment of Handel to Ireland and the supremacy of chaos in music.
Pope uses an epic simile to describe the nations clustering around the goddess: “orb in orb, congloved are seen/ The buzzing Bees about their dusky Queen.” Present are the passive followers of Dulness and those who lead the advance: pompous editors who make mincemeat of good poets with notes and commentary, patrons who set up a bust of a poet after he has died neglected.
A specter, the head of Westminster School, modeled on Milton’s Moloch, speaks on the state of education:
As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense,
Pope criticizes the hair-splitting grammarians and Aristarchus’s boasts that he has turned good verse into prose again. Science is also satirized as the study that loses itself in detail; but Dulness still fears science, for an object of nature is capable of awakening a mind. Religion does not escape, and the poet says that it has degenerated into a belief in a mechanistic God, made in humankind’s image.
Knowing the state of her kingdom, the goddess celebrates her mysteries, reflecting Pope’s interest in ceremony. As the rites are concluded a state of dullness encompasses the country, schools, government, army. Truth, philosophy, and religion perish as “Universal Darkness buries All.”
The Dunciad contains more of the heroic spirit than most other mock epics. Most mock epics are directed toward the amusement of the reader and do not age well past the time in which their jokes are caught without footnotes. The Dunciad, however, reveals Pope’s passionate conviction that the triumph of dullness was a real danger to art, science, and learning. He chose to deliver his warning to England in a humorous form, but his seriousness about his subject raises the latter part of the fourth book to the level of real heroic poetry.
There are many fine lines of poetry in The Dunciad, but it is more diffuse and less brilliant satire than either Mac Flecknoe or Pope’s own Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735). Missing are the biting, succinct couplets such as Dryden’s “The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,/ But Shadwell never deviates into sense,” or Pope’s lines on Addison, “Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,/ And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.”
The greatest deterrent to the modern reader’s easy enjoyment of The Dunciad is probably the fact that so much of the poet’s criticism of contemporary people and issues is almost unintelligible; few names die faster than those of the fifth-rate writers of an era. Nevertheless, the satirical comments on universal conditions remain fresh and pointed. The Dunciad is worthy of a high place among mock-heroic poems.
Bibliography
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