Dryden's Mock Heroic Verse

John Dryden was an incredibly well-educated and brilliant author and critic who was able to unite 
all his talents and fathered a genre of literature that we enjoy to this day.

You might say that it all began with his famed mock-epic poem “Mac Flecknoe.” The poem, I believe, was intended for a particular audience, much like today’s political satire is most effectively enjoyed by those who keep up with politics.

That is why it is important to familiarize yourself with the historical context of when literature was written to appreciate the overall meaning and be able to walk away with more than just a personal interpretation.

In Mac Flecknoe, Dryden presents a writer who can’t quite deliver. Mac Flecknoe will do anything to try and come across as funny, but his wit falls short.  It is common that the author Dryden was talking about was Thomas Shadwell.

What Dryden does in his mock-epic is to attack all the elements that Shadwell was aiming to achieve with his writing and show how they have the adverse effect. He does this in a very exaggerated and comical way.

Similarly to how a politician might use big words to sound intelligent, but his misuse of the word makes him sound nonsensical, and so it makes him look stupid, instead.

Shadwell was a successful and respected writer of his time, but according to, Mac Flecknoe was the king of the realm of Non-sense so.

What Dryden accomplishes with his poem is known as satire, and it is alive and well today.

Shows such as Saturday Night Live and South Park reach the extremes of satire and are more of a parody. They are less discreet with whom they are poking fun at and use the actual names or likeness of their victims.

But while satire is comical, it is also intended to put into question the actions of those it regards and the political climate in general. It makes people question and re-evaluates their initial opinions, especially if they enjoy the ridicule of a particular person or situation.

For those of us who enjoy the social and political commentary satire entertains us with, we can thank John Dryden for more or less fathering the satirical genre.

Blog Post 2

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It Happens

Image
I was astonished to see how sexually liberated some of the authors from the mid-seventeenth century were. By then, unlike one hundred years earlier, sex outside of marriage was no longer being punished, and people were taking advantage. Rochester  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the term Libertine, which authors like Aphra Behn and John Wilmot of Rochester identified, as was a person who felt morally liberated, especially concerning sex. Both Behn and Rochester wrote poems about a subject that is to this day, one that is discussed with discretion and in private. ..a man’s mishap in the boudoir. Rochester’s poem “The Imperfect Enjoyment” discusses a man who finds himself in a romantic situation and proceeds to experience an early release leaving his lover disappointed. Rochester’s poem is comedic because he never outright says what happened, but delivers the message quite clearly; "In liquid raptures I dissolved all o’er"  Behn wrote, “The Disappoint...
Read more

Read All ABout It! Print Journalism of the 18th Century

Image
By the 18 th century Britain was the Empire in which, "the sun never set" and so much information  was available from all parts of the world that it is no wonder journalism experienced a rise in popularity.  What aided the popularization of newspaper was the increase in literacy in the population as the middle class was expanding and flourishing with commerce and trade.  Magazines were made for all audiences such as The Lady's Magazine or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Amusement, Which covered women's fashions and happenings and  The Gentleman's Magazine which was in print for near 200 years from 1731 to 1922, and where Samuel Johnson was first regularly employed as a writer as a parliamentary reporter.  Richard Steele and Joseph Addison wrote about cultural matters in their journalistic print titled The Spectator . I find that there are similarities between The Spectator and modern day publications like ...
Read more

The Age of Enlightenment Has Yet to Come

Image
In the words of Immanuel Kant, to be “enlightened” is simply to “Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!” If we were to simply use this as a guide to determine whether or not we are living in an enlightened era, then I would say that we are most definitely living in a time of enlightenment. One only has to look to the Internet to see just how enlightened people are. People have taken their own understanding of things and run into the sunset with them. In the traditional sense of enlightenment as in the philosophical movement in which great thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke made significant scientific discoveries and questioned authority.  They demanded that citizens be given rights, which, in turn, resulted in the great revolutions from which The United States of America and the American Revolutionary spirit was born. The era of Enlightenment encouraged human thinking and development, something that is still very much at play. But people refusin...
Read more