DUNCIAD, The. This Satire, by Pope, is in the form of a mock-epic of 1,700 lines in heroic couplets, and was published in 1729. It is the monumental example of its kind in English. Though professedly a chastisement of the ((dunces,* the ((Grub Street fry,* with whom Pope quarreled almost all his life, it really attacks all the writers who intentionally or otherwise, with or without cause, had wounded the poet's vanity. Pope always re membered every line written, every word uttered against himself, and repaid it with interest. Hence, though the professed purpose of his ((epic of the dunces* is "'to crush these common mankind,* his personal animosity is evident in every line. His protagonist, king of the dunces and the realm of Dullness, was at first Theobald, who had attacked Pope's bad edition of Shakespeare, and had produced a better one, but he was afterward dethroned in favor of Colley Cibber, who in the meantime had ridiculed Pope's unsuccessful play. The Dunciad borrows its general scheme from 'MacFlecknoe) (q.v.), but enlarges the ac tion, notably by the beastly games that cele brate the coronation. Even with this, the ac tion is slight and unimportant. With the third book, foretelling the reign of Dullness, the poem properly ends. In 1742 Pope added a fourth book, made up of fragments composed for an other purpose, which realizes the reign of Dull ness, and in which Bentley, the Greek scholar, is most unjustifiably made the protagonist.
The Dunciad is dedicated to Swift, whom Pope addresses as a successor to Rabelais. Swift's influence, though certainly not Ra belaisian, is apparent throughout the poem; but whether or not Swift ever really ((laughed and shook in Rabelais' easy chair,' Pope certainly fails in his own attempt to use the jovial method of the great French satirist. He ends by man
gling his enemies, covering them with showers of vile abuse, and then rolling them in mud of peculiar filth and malodor. Though most of his victims were, even as he asserted, of small importance, he has °preserved his flies in amber.' Copious explanatory notes, which were needed even with the first edition, now alone render much of the satire intelligible to the modern reader. Yet it is uncritical to re gard Dunciad' as little more than a monument of malice. Only one English poet could have written it. Its verse is polished; its expression is concise and incisive to the last degree; its wit is often brilliant; some of its lines, such as right divine of kings to govern wrong,' have passed into the common stock. The concluding passage of the poem, depicting the universal empire of Dullness, at tains the very sublime in mockery and is as sure of immortality as almost any other in English poetry. Among the innumerable imitations of 'The Dunciad,' Byron's Bards and Scotch Reviewers' is by far the ablest and most celebrated. Consult Warton, 'Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope' (Vol. II, pp. 439-454) ; Paston, George, Pope' (Vol. I, pp. 351-364) ; for notes, illustrations, list of imitations, etc., consult Warton's edition of Pope's (Works' (Vol. V, 1797) ; Aldine edition; Thorns, W. J., on Editions of the Dun ciad' (n.d.).