Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The first three books of The Dunciad were published in 1728, Forty-six years after the first publication of Mac Flecknoe in which John Dryden crowned Thomas Shadwell, the poetaster as the ruler of the kingdom of poetic dullness. Pope expanded the theme of Dullness to a mock epic. It is a long poem, much longer than Alexander Pope’s other masterpiece The Rape of The Lock. Furthermore, The Dunciad isn’t as closely composed as The Rape of The Lock, yet it is no less satirical. It includes the criticism of individuals and the common trends in contemporary literary circles. In the first edition, Lewis Theobald was satirized as Tibbald, the hero. However, the hero was changed to Bays in the second edition in 1943. Pope based his mock epic on Homer’s Illiad and Virgil’s Aeneid. He even included a dream of the hero going to the Underworld like that in Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. However, that appears in Book 2 of The Dunciad.
Summary and Analysis of Book 1
The first book is composed of 330 lines all written in Heroic couplets like an epic. The Dunciad was published anonymously in 1728 but Pope was already popular as the most scathing satirical poet of that period and thus, there was no doubt about the authorship. The basic purpose of The Dunciad was to criticize the Grub Street commercial writers and patrons who produced excessively for the market of ephemera and for the literature of mere entertainment.
Lewis Theobald became the center of Pope’s ire when he belittled him with his editorial on Shakespeare’s works. Thus, he became the hero of The Dunciad in 1928. Later on, Colley Cibber acquired that position, who himself was no better than Theobald, yet, was appointed poet-laureate. Despite his mediocre works, Colley Cibber attained the patronage of Queen Carolina and thus she became the inspiration for Dullness.
The poem begins with a proper invocation of muses by the narrator for their help in the success of this mock-epic narrative poem written in iambic pentameters.
“I sing. Say you, her instruments the Great!
Call'd to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate”
Thus, the muses for Pope’s work were the Dullness engulfing the intellectual culture and values of English society while he invoked Jove, the king of Roman gods adhering to the tradition of Classical epics. He further invokes Fate as a muse to suggest that the abysmal situation of the arts and literary society of Britain is unavoidable as if decided by fate. Dulness emerges to be the main character of the poem, aided by Fate, which appears to be the major theme of the poem.
Then the poet attacks the patronage system by which rich people used to support the hack-authors to create mass entertainment literature lacking any literary quality. Most of such Grub street writers used to plagiarize and lampoon the earlier great originals to make easy money and thus, the patrons used to gain profit. Pope attacks the commercialization of arts and literature by depicting Dulness as an immortal anarchic Goddess exerting control over the minds of writers, artists, and intellectuals, like the greedy patrons interfering with the minds of authors and guiding them to write cheap thrills lacking any creativity. Then the poet names a few servants of Dulness including writers, publishers, and editors and the first that is mentioned is Pope’s old friend and roommate Jonathan Swift himself.
“O Thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!”
Other writers whom Pope satirized as Dunces included Cervantes, Rabelais, Lintot, and Edmund Curll. The poet praises the goddess of Dulness who is bringing a "new Saturnian age of Lead," or a gloomy, slow, and heavy period for the intellectuals of Britain. He then lampoons Ciber while describing a mythical world of Dulness where Folly holds a throne, Poetry, and Poverty share a cave out of which dull poets flood the literary landscape with new printed works, and Dulness has a college for nurturing these poets who are “Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers.” Cibber is the favorite son of Dullness, the poet-laureate of England. Dulness sits on the throne held by Folly and she is protected by four “guardian Virtues” namely, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Poetic Justice. Folly, being a loyal assistant of Dullness supervises these ‘guardian Virtues.’ Fortitude ascertains that there is no fear of a bad reputation among the Dunces while Calm Temperance and Prudence ascertain the friendship between poverty and poetry. Poetic Justice has the most important job to perform as she weighs Truth with gold in Dullness’s lifted scale, that is, she turns lies into truth for bribes. It weighs “solid pudding against empty praise.”
The goddess of Dulness has employed Metaphors, Tragedy, Comedy, Farce, and so on to gather a chaotic and confusing force to ascertain her rule over the masses.
The goddess of Dulness always remains in a veil of fog, hidden in shrouded clouds. She is a little worried as her old servant and poet laureate Eusden is too old to continue. The irony is, Laurence Eusden became Britain's youngest Poet Laureate in 1718.
Dulness thus decides to choose a new poet laureate, the king of Dunces. There are many Dunces and poets of a high degree of Dulness in their works but the goddess of Dulness seeks the best, the dullest among them and she sets her eyes on Bayes. The word laureate comes from the ancient Greek victory symbol of the bay laurel wreath and thus, Pope chose Bayes as the hero’s name. In the first edition of The Dunciad, the hero’s name was Tibbald based on Lewis Theobald which turned into Bayes in all other editions to attack Colley Cibber, the poet laureate in 1730. Pope did lampoon Lewis Tibbald along with Cibber and John Ozelle in lines (285-286) as “’ Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and Corneille// Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, and Ozlle.”
The narrator then shifts focus to Bayes who is troubled by his inner conflict. He is serving the goddess of Dulness with utmost devotion but is anxious if his efforts are enough to please her. Most of his works are incomplete and he is surrounded by “much Embryo, much Abortion lay, / Much future Ode, and abdicated Play." He is sitting in his library full of original works of the poets of the past. He thinks of Shakespeare and Molière whom he has profusely plagiarized in his works. However, he never read any other author and their works and knows nothing about them. Yet, he keeps them in his collection as decor and "serve (like other fools) to fill a room." These works are out of reach of his mental or physical reach as they are kept closed and safe on the upper shelves where he cannot reach them. Bayes is quite frustrated with his inability to complete any work that may impress Queen Dulness and thus, he takes twelve of the original works from the upper shelves and set them above his own petty works to make an altar to worship the goddess of Dulness while thinking of pursuing some other profession. He confesses how he faulted against his service to Dulness and how once a demon stole his pen and "betry'd [him] into common sense." But he asserts that apart from that single incidence, he always remained loyal and devoted to the goddess of Dulness. He wonders if he pleases the goddess Dulness or if should he take some other profession to take up in place of being one of Dulness' poets. He thinks of joining the Clergy, or taking up gambling or "gaming," or becoming a party writer. Finally, he makes up his mind and lights up the altar to send his unpublished incomplete works to the realms untouched where they won't be tarnished by the printers of London.
This extreme step awakens the goddess of Dulness who immediately takes "a sheet of Thule from her bed," and flies down to Bayes, and uses the sheet to put out the fire, rescuing the works. The sheet of Thule refers to some unfinished poem whose ink is still wet, a poem that was so cold, uninspiring, and heavy that it couldn’t be completed.
Queen Dulness takes Bayes back to the most sacred hall of her college and declares the place his new home. She anoints him with opium and puts the symbol of her sacred bird upon a crown which she places on Bayes' head. The Queen declares that Eusden is dead and now, Bayes is the King of Dunces who will now be known as Cibber. It’s no coincidence, the new name of the king poet of Dulness is directly referring to Colley Cibber, Pope’s real-world subject of criticism. As soon as the goddess of Dulness makes the announcement, every Dunce celebrated it with much noise and clamor, "the hoarse nation croak'd, 'God save King Log!'"
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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