The Dunciad

“‘This is an allusion to a text in Scripture, which shews, in Mr. Pope, a delight in prophaneness,’ said Curl upon this place. But it is very familiar with Shakespear to allude to passages of Scripture: Out of a great number I will select a few, in which he not only alludes to, but quotes the very Texts from holy Writ.”

The note to Line 50 in Book 1 is one of the earliest in which a criticism regarding the earlier editions is directly addressed. The author even includes the necessary works cited when he calls out the Dunces and flings their words back at them.

“Prose swell’d to verse, verse loit’ring into prose”

At various points in The Dunciad, the reader is reminded that, ultimately, Pope’s biggest issue is with the literary standards of the day. Here and elsewhere he gives examples that are hallmarks of what he considers bad writing.

“And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims

By herald Hawkers, high heroic Games.”

In the inverse to the previous example, where Pope wants to remind the reader what bad writing looks like, here he subtly shows off his poetic skill. The entire Dunciad is written in rhyming decasyllabic couplets, known as heroic couplets. Pope also adds flourishes of alliteration and classical allusions to this pair of lines.

“His rapid waters in their passage burn.”

Pope implies that Cibber has a sexually transmitted infection. To avoid any doubt that this was his intent, he even adds a note feigning innocence, claiming that he would never insult a man for such a thing.

“As when the long-ear’d milky mothers wait

At some sick miser’s triple-bolted gate,

For their defrauded, absent foals they make

A moan so loud, that all the guild awake.”

This is an incredibly poetic—borderline absurd—way of saying that the Dunces sounded like cows. The mock-heroic mirror of drama is melodrama, and Pope really lays it on thick here.

“This labour past, by Bridewell all descend,

(As morning pray’r, and flagellation end)”

Except for the portions that are set in Dulness’s palace, the entire poem takes place in very specific London locations. Moreover, each of these locations holds special meaning in London literary or social life or acts as a parallel to an element of classical poetry. The note for this entry explains, “It is between eleven and twelve in the morning, after church service, that the criminals are whipt in Bridewell.” Pope is noting the passage of time in a way similar to what Homer did in his epics, but with a satirical twist.

“The plunging Prelate, and his pond’rous Grace,

With holy envy gave one Layman place.

When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood.

Slow rose a form, in majesty of Mud;

Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,

And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.

Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares:

Then thus the wonders of the deep declares.”

It’s easy to forget amidst all the sarcasm and sniping that The Dunciad is, before anything else, a poem. Every so often, Pope shows off his skills, turning an otherwise disgusting scene of a man rising out of sewage into a thing of beauty through precise diction and alliteration.

“Thus the soft gifts of Sleep conclude the day,

And stretch’d on bulks, as usual, Poets lay.”

In true mock-heroic style, The Dunciad is driven by inaction more than action. The final game of the day quite literally puts all the Dunces to sleep.

“And now, on Fancy’s easy wing convey’d,

The King descending, views th’ Elysian Shade.”

Virtually all of Book 3 takes place within a dream. In classical epic poems following the traditional Hero’s Journey, the hero descends to the underworld to face new trials, confront their fears, and ultimately be reborn. Colley Cibber, on the other hand, falls asleep.

“Here, in a dusky vale where Lethe rolls,

Old Bavius sits, to dip poetic souls,

And blunt the sense, and fit it for a skull

Of solid proof, impenetrably dull.”

In Greek myth, souls drank from the waters of the Lethe after death to forget their past lives. Here, souls are being dipped into the water before being sent into life, to ensure they are as dull as possible.

“Oh born to see what none can see awake!

Behold the wonders of th’ oblivious Lake.

Thou, yet unborn, hast touch’d this sacred shore;

The hand of Bavius drench’d thee o’er and o’er.”

The allusion to Greek myth and the exalted language belie the sharply critical intent of this passage: Elkanah Settle, Cibber’s guide to the underworld, is pointing out that Cibber was dipped into the waters of the Lethe over and over again before he began his life, ensuring that he would be the dullest and stupidest he could possibly be.

“In peace, great Goddess, ever be ador’d;

How keen the war, if Dulness draw the sword!

Thus visit not thy own! on this blest age

Oh spread thy Influence, but restrain thy Rage.”

Pope takes a knock at the stupidity of war and how easily the Dunces of the world can be led to it. A warning is given to Cibber, and by extension the Dunces, not to fight with each other, lest their rage undermine Dulness’s reign.

“All sudden, Gorgons hiss, and Dragons glare,

And ten-horn’d fiends and Giants rush to war.

Hell rises, Heav’n descends, and dance on Earth:

Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth,

A fire, a jigg, a battle, and a ball,

’Till one wide conflagration swallows all.

Thence a new world to Nature’s laws unknown,

Breaks out refulgent, with a heav’n its own:

Another Cynthia her new journey runs,

And other planets circle other suns.

The forests dance, the rivers upward rise,

Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies;

And last, to give the whole creation grace,

Lo! one vast Egg produces human race.”

These images in Book 3 are part of Cibber’s vision of the future. Before the fourth book was published, this passage represented the extent of the apocalyptic elements in the poem. Once Book 4 was published, however, and the books were all brought together in one edition, this passage became a prelude to the biblical end times that now finish the poem.

“See, see, our own true Phœbus wears the bays!

Our Midas sits Lord Chancellor of Plays!

On Poets Tombs see Benson’s titles writ!

Lo! Ambrose Philips is prefer’d for Wit!

See under Ripley rise a new White-hall,

While Jones’ and Boyle’s united labours fall:

While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends,

Gay dies unpension’d with a hundred friends,

Hibernian Politics, O Swift! thy fate;

And Pope’s, ten years to comment and translate.”

Toward the end of Cibber’s vision in Book 3, Pope conjures the most horrible portents of the future he can imagine: All his enemies are in power, and all his friends are unappreciated. Pope was suggesting that Dulness’s second reign had already begun, as evidenced by so much of the world around him. He even threw in a line about his own career frustrations.

“There march’d the bard and blockhead, side by side,

Who rhym’d for hire, and patroniz’d for pride.”

To Pope, it was a sin against the Muses to write for any reason other than one’s own inspiration. He held those who wrote for pay in equal contempt with those who collected writers like pets through patronage.

“When Dulness, smiling—‘Thus revive the Wits!

But murder first, and mince them all to bits.’”

The author provides the key to this quote in the notes: “The Goddess applauds the practice of tacking the obscure names of Persons not eminent in any branch of learning, to those of the most distinguished writers” (3: R35). It is another example of how the literary standards of the day were in serious decline.

“We hang one jingling padlock on the mind.”

The schoolmaster who stands before Dulness boasts of all the ways he prevents students from learning anything other than words. The padlock that his methods place on young minds “jingles,” symbolizing the rhyme and meter used to make rote learning more palatable.

“Turn what they will to Verse, their toil is vain,

Critics like me shall make it Prose again.”

Although it may seem at first a quippy insult like any other in the poem, this couplet contains perhaps the strongest condemnation Pope could make of critics. Poets create beauty, saying in verse what others might have difficulty saying even in prose. In Pope’s opinion, critics, who tear apart poems, scrutinizing them word by word, destroy that beauty.

“O! would the Sons of Men once think their Eyes

And Reason giv’n them but to study Flies!

See Nature in some partial narrow shape,

And let the Author of the Whole escape:

Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe,

To wonder at their Maker, not to serve.”

While the poem is not overtly spiritual, Pope here calls attention to the idea that too many people obsess over the details of Creation and forget all about their Creator, God. They can’t see the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.

“This is the third speech of the Goddess to her Supplicants, and completes the whole of what she had to give in instruction on this important occasion, concerning Learning, Civil Society, and Religion. In the first speech, ver. 119, to her Editors and conceited Critics, she directs how to deprave Wit and discredit fine Writers. In her second, ver. 175, to the Educators of Youth, she shews them how all Civil Duties may be extiguish’d, in that one doctrine of divine Hereditary Right. And in this third, she charges the Investigators of Nature to amuse themselves in Trifles, and rest in Second causes, with a total disregard of the First. This being all that Dulness can wish, is all she needs to say; and we may apply to her (as the Poet hath manag’d it) what hath been said of true Wit, that She neither says too little, nor too much.”

This is the note for the previous quotation. While artists sometimes prefer to let their work speak for itself, Pope doesn’t leave anything to chance. Some of the notes read like an essay on craft, while others, like this one, tackle broader social, political, and philosophical concerns. To Pope, all these things are connected. The decay of literary standards leads to the decay of society, and vice versa.

“A Recapitulation of the whole Course of Modern Education describ’d in this book, which confines Youth to the study of Words only in Schools, subjects them to the authority of Systems in the Universities, and deludes them with the names of Party-distinctions in the World. All equally concurring to narrow the Understanding, and establish Slavery and Error in Literature, Philosophy, and Politics. The whole finished in modern Free-thinking; the completion of whatever is vain, wrong, and destructive to the happiness of mankind, as it establishes Self-love for the sole Principle of Action.”

Pope takes a fairly radical view for his time. Liberalism and the uplift of the individual were Enlightenment concepts that remain the foundation of much of Western thought today. Pope saw flaws in Enlightenment thinking, particularly the “vain, wrong, and destructive” idea that the needs and rights of the individual take precedence over everything else.

“All my commands are easy, short, and full:

My Sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull.”

Dulness doesn’t trouble her subjects with complicated instructions. Much of her power lies in the simplicity of her commands and the ease with which they can be carried out.

“We should be unjust to the reign of Dulness not to confess that her’s has one advantage in it rarely to be met with in Modern Governments, which is, that the public Education of her Youth fits and prepares them for the observance of her Laws, and the exertion of those Virtues she recommends. For what makes men prouder than the empty knowledge of Words; more selfish than the Free-thinker’s System of Morals; or duller than the profession of true Virtuosoship?”

This biting couplet in Lines 581-82 comes with an equally biting note. The scope of Book 4 is much larger than that of the earlier books, and as he nears the climax, Pope lets his true feelings fly.