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John DrydenA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In “Mac Flecknoe,” Dryden engages with an epidemic of dull writers and ignorant readers. At the heart of the poem lies an elitist concern that London’s poor aesthetic values will lead to a depraved literary culture that celebrates poor works over works of value. The scale of the problem, as Dryden interprets it, is revealed through the use of the epic form. Epics, conventionally, are defined by their role in nation-building; they detail heroic deeds and events that are at the root of cultural or national identity. A mock-heroic, such as Dryden’s “Mac Flecknoe,” serves a similar function. However, instead of detailing the heroic deeds and positive virtues that led to the founding of a real culture, “Mac Flecknoe” imagines a nation founded on the negative virtues of “dullness” (Line 16) and “non-sense” (Line 6). In a way, Dryden envisions an aesthetic and intellectual dystopia where boring works are favored above interesting works, and nonsense is favored above sense.
Dryden’s use of irony also betrays the severity of this epidemic. Members of Flecknoe’s kingdom are at once dismissed and celebrated for their lack of literary talent. Shadwell’s most distinctive trait, for example, is his inability to make sense. Flecknoe deems Shadwell worthy of taking over his kingdom because he “stands confirmed in full stupidity” (Line 18) and “never deviates into sense” (Line 20). Consistency is an important virtue in many cultures, and Shadwell’s consistent inability to communicate is deemed his chief virtue. The word “deviate” (Line 20) suggests a complete inversion of values relating to this consistency—the usual concern is that an author may deviate into nonsense, not into sense. This inversion of literary values is an essential part of Shadwell’s characterization, and reaches its peak later when Flecknoe states that Shadwell’s “Tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep” (Line 198).
Shadwell’s inability to make sense is akin to a supernatural power, where “Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, […] But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray” (Lines 21, 23). Shadwell’s “genuine night” (Line 23), or ability to occlude the truth as night occludes one’s vision, is so thick that even external forces of celestial bodies (as suggested by the use of “night” [Line 23] in the metaphor) cannot penetrate it.
It is not only intellectual truth that Shadwell’s thickness blocks. Flecknoe states that Shadwell’s “goodly fabric fills the eye” (Line 25), blocking any investigation of the material world. Dryden uses this cheap joke about Shadwell’s size (which is picked up again in Line 193) to demonstrate the problems of Shadwell’s influence. The “goodly fabric” (Line 25) indicates the clothes’ expensive materials, but the “thoughtless majesty” (Line 26) they create suggests a shoddy, unconsidered use of those materials. The comparison between Shadwell and “monarch oaks that shade the plain” (Line 27) is more direct, combining Shadwell’s size with the earlier metaphor of darkness. Shadwell’s reign as a “monarch oak” (Line 27) will spread obscuring darkness across the kingdom and “shade the plain” (Line 27). Darkness is an essential symbol of Shadwell’s reign and also makes a metaphorical appearance in the coronation scene as the “twelve reverend owls” (Line 129).
The poem’s attacks of Shadwell, however, are not all based in his intellectual powers. Near the end of the first stanza, Shadwell is said to hold his “papers in [his] threshing hand” (Line 52). This reference to threshing wheat does two things: It implies that Shadwell’s verse is repetitive and mechanical, like the constant beating of wheat in the threshing process, and it associates Shadwell with a lower class of manual laborers. This association develops further in Flecknoe’s praises of Shadwell’s ability to keep time in Line 53 and of his prolific versification in Line 55. The implicit suggestion is that Shadwell does not refine his works but mechanically produces them for a profitable sale. Shadwell, then, is more a laborer than an artist. This class stratification is also what informs much of the second stanza, where the bulk of the satire comes from parodying Shadwell’s disreputable upbringing.
To counter-point Shadwell’s cultural depravity, the coronation scene in the third stanza is rife with classical allusions. Dryden, in this third stanza, invokes Ascanius, Hannibal, Romulus, and the Tiber river (Lines 108, 112, 130). These allusions, on the surface, elevate the language to suit the historic coronation. Moreover, this movement—from the intellectually deprived upbringing of the previous stanza to classical figures—seems Dryden’s way of juxtaposing his own classical poetic education with what he considers Shadwell’s shoddy upbringing and the “Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys” (Line 71). This stanza’s irony draws from Shadwell’s incompatibility with these historical figures. This irony is also reinforced through the implicit suggestion that these classical figures are known from great literary works that the audience has presumably read. Meanwhile, Shadwell’s own work has been “scattered” (Line 99) unread among the “limbs of mangled poets” (Line 99). Though celebrated, Shadwell is not considered a worthy continuation of the Western literary tradition.
In fact, Shadwell’s “new impudence” (Line 146) and “new ignorance” (Line 146) is a novel problem that upsets natural orders. Shadwell is unusual, for instance, in multiple realms of creation, producing “Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry” (Line 148). When Shadwell labors, he produces nothing, and only when he does “not labour to be dull” (Line 166) does he “write [his] best” (Line 167). More than merely commenting on Shadwell’s lack of effort, this inverse relationship between work and production dramatizes Shadwell’s inability to make sense. It also draws, through its ironic opposites, an implicit connection between art, suffering, and labor. Shadwell is capable of suffering and labor, but not for the sake of artistic creation. This is a possible meaning of Lines 175-76, where Flecknoe produces a similar connection between the natural order and artistic creation, stating that he and Shadwell have no share “in Nature, or in Art” (Line 176)
Shadwell’s nonsense sets him apart in Flecknoe’s kingdom of dullness. Though his powers are revealed, in part, through his insensitivity to the natural order, the most telling indication is in Lines 212-13. Here, as elsewhere in the poem, characters from Shadwell’s plays comes to life and affect the world. In this instance, “Bruce and Longvil” (Line 212) from Shadwell’s The Virtuoso had prepared a trap to which Flecknoe fell victim, prematurely terminating his speech. There is no given reason as to why Shadwell or his characters may want Flecknoe trapped, nor have the characters appeared before; the situation is unexpected and nonsensical given the rest of the poem. In other words, Shadwell’s nonsense has already taken over.
By John Dryden