The Dunciad: A Mock Epic? Honors English The fourth book of the Dunciad describes the fall and slow death of the English society that once taught him all the things he knew. He lashes out at his critics, accusers, and nay Sayers in his allegorical poem. It symbolizes a mock epic because of the elaborate use of words, calling on inspiration from a higher force, and using his work not so much to tell a story, but to point out the faults of a social order that can’t or chooses not to see what they ” re really doing. It opens with:” Yet, yet a moment, one dim ray of light Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!” [Line 1, A. P. ]”Suspend a while your force inertly strong, Then take at once the Poet, and the song.” [Line 7, A.
P. ]In tradition of the epic, Alexander calls for the aide of an outside power. He doesn’t follow the rules completely, and replaces the muse with Chaos and Night, but does this only to enforce what he’s trying to do with his point and gives you a picture of where he’s going next. In epics, there’s always a battle or a scene that is brazenly described, adding drama, making it a little more important and draws the reader in. When Alexander Pope describes the room as the educators stand before the Goddess, and the scene where Dullness triumphs over everything that breathes life into human creativity, he makes it a point to describe each scene as a play-by-play battle in itself. An advocate of the empress rising to speak is now a ghost that is a force to be reckoned with.
The Essay on The English Epic Hero
In folktales, legends, mythology, and even the Bible, people are told stories of men with unimaginable strength. They perform heroic feats and give service to the people they love. In the Old English epic of Beowulf, by an unknown author, people are enlightened of another such hero. Beowulf, the main character of the epic, is very much an epic hero. Epic heroes are defined according to many ...
“When lo! A spectator rose, whose index hand/ held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand; / his beavered brow a birchen ed garland wears/ dropping with infants blood and mothers tears/[line 139, A. P. ] “All flesh is humbled, Westminster’s bold race/ Shrink and confess the Genius of the place.” [Line 145, A. P. ) He uses epic form not so much to make fun of the style but in it he’s able to highlight the idiocies of society. In his other work, Rape of The Lock, he uses his elaborate stanzas to play up Belinda’s actions to tell of the vanity and idleness of the 18 th Century.
He uses the “momentous” card game and the extent of Belinda’s beauty and effect on men to show the social class he is in that it fails to rise to the epic standards. It shows that society is petty where the literary grandeur ought to be. The Dunciad is far more serious than that Rape of the Lock, which causes it to share more things in common with serious epic tales, but in the same way it exposes the ulterior motives and the censorship going on under a “distinguished” society order. He uses the impending courtroom to tell of the hold Dullness has on the minds of writers in England and speaks of the dunces who don’t want to be dunces but are anyway, “What ” er of no one class admits/ a wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits” [line 89, A. P. ] which elude to how he views his opposers and those who financially support them for trophy purposes.
In both works, his use of the epic form is almost too much but in each of them, it helps us see into the inner workings and mindsets of the people at that point in time like so many other epics do as well. The Dunciad uses the epic’s elaborate speech and structure to draw readers into the poem and cause them to be a little more interested in what’s happening. He evokes a higher power to stay true to the style because you can’t have a classic epic, mock or not, without heavenly inspiration. His over dramatic elements open our eyes and show his opinions / views of the society that is crumbling around him, and make the readers assess the seriousness of the situation, which opens the debate of whether these elements are their present lives..
The Essay on Epic Vs Modern Heroes
While Have at thee! the Arthurian battle cry from Monty Pythons Search for the Holy Grail, is a far a-hem cry from the modern day heros, the essence remains the same. Many aspects of culture have been wholly altered, but societys quest for a hero has remained. Each people of the ancient times had a matchless idol that was unto his self the embodiment of cultural perfection. In more recent eras, ...
