The Dunciad - Origins

Origins

Pope told Joseph Spence (in Spence's Anecdotes) that he had been working on a general satire of Dulness, with characters of contemporary scribblers, for some time and that it was the publication of Shakespeare Restored by Lewis Theobald that spurred him to complete the poem and publish it in 1728. Theobald's edition of Shakespeare was not, however, as imperfect as The Dunciad would suggest; it was, in fact, far superior to the edition Pope had himself written in 1725. Pope's underlying reason for the satire then was retaliation against the full title of Theobald's edition: Shakespeare restored, or, A specimen of the many errors, as well committed, as unamended, by Mr. Pope : in his late edition of this poet. Designed not only to correct the said edition, but to restore the true reading of Shakespeare in all the editions ever yet published. Although Theobald was certainly Pope's superior in the realm of criticism, The Dunciad shows Pope flexing his superior creative muscles, and succeeds in the sense that it is the chief reason Theobald is remembered.

Certainly Pope had written characters of the various "Dunces" prior to 1728. In his "Essay on Criticism," Pope characterizes some witless critics. In his various "Moral Espitles," Pope likewise draws characters of contemporary authors of poor taste. However, the general structure owes its origins to, on the one hand, the communal project of the Scriblerians and, on the other, the mock-heroic "MacFlecknoe" by John Dryden.

The Scriblerian club comprised Jonathan Swift, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Robert Harley, and Thomas Parnell most consistently, and the group met during the spring and summer of 1714. One group project was to write a satire of contemporary abuses in learning of all sorts, where the authors would combine to write the biography of the group's fictional founder, Martin Scriblerus. The resulting The Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus contained a number of parodies of the most lavish mistakes in scholarship.

For the mock-heroic structure of the Dunciad itself, however, the idea seems to have come most clearly from MacFlecknoe. MacFlecknoe is a poem celebrating the apotheosis of Thomas Shadwell, whom Dryden nominates as the dullest poet of the age. Shadwell is the spiritual son of Flecknoe, an obscure Irish poet of low fame, and he takes his place as the favorite of the goddess Dulness.

Pope takes this idea of the personified goddess of Dulness being at war with reason, darkness at war with light, and extends it to a full Aeneid parody. His poem celebrates a war, rather than a mere victory, and a process of ignorance, and Pope picks as his champion of all things insipid Lewis Theobald (1728 and '32) and Colley Cibber (1742).