45 pages • 1 hour read
Alexander PopeThe Dunciad
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1743A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Defamation
One of the main motifs in The Dunciad, and certainly the one that contemporary readers would have been paying most attention to, is defamation. The early editions named fewer names than the later ones in a vain attempt to prevent direct accusations of defamation from the Dunces. However, when various “keys” were published (incorrectly) claiming to identify them, Alexander Pope had to set the record straight.
Still not wanting to be accused of baselessly insulting members of London literary and political society, Pope devises a workaround: He primarily uses the Dunces’ own words against them, either to lampoon each other or themselves. The note affixed to Line 268 of Book 2, regarding Sir Richard Blackmore, contains quotes from at least four different sources insulting his work. Pope felt that he could hardly be blamed for the opinions of others.
In addition, many of the notes specifically address claims that a line or passage from an earlier edition was meant as an insult and correct them: “It is amazing how the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators,” reads a note from Book 1 that is emblematic of this approach (1: R36). Everyone knew exactly what Pope was doing, but the satirical mode of his writing allowed him to play the innocent victim.
Sarcasm
Sarcasm is one of the key elements of satire, especially mock-epics like The Dunciad. Pope uses sarcasm to insult his enemies while seemingly complimenting them. He utilizes sarcasm in both the text and the notes and additional materials, feigning innocence and ignorance while cutting his targets. Some of Pope’s most withering sarcasm in The Dunciad is at the expense of Edmund Curll, a bookseller and publisher who played an instrumental role in the commercialization of literature in Pope’s era:
He possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very Names their own. He was not only famous among these; he was taken notice of by the State, the Church, and the Law, and received particular marks of distinction from each (2: R11).
In this passage, the language of praise is used to condemn Curll, implying that he misrepresents writers and robs them of their integrity, and suggesting that he has even gotten himself into legal trouble for his unscrupulous practices. Many similar entries are made issuing false praise to the Dunces. Pope rarely insults anyone outright. Of course, when he does insert more direct attacks, they’re still dripping with sarcasm, as with this note regarding Colley Cibber: “It is hoped the poet here hath done justice to his Hero’s Character, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly sunk in stupidity” (1: R34).
Sewage and Waste
The Dunciad is highly allegorical, so there are countless symbols throughout. Quite fittingly, perhaps the most prevalent symbols are sewage and waste. Most of the Dunces mess around in the muck at some point in the poem, which reflects the author’s opinion of both the writers and the writing that he’s satirizing.
The first competition is disrupted by “a lake / Which Curl’s Corinna chanc’d that morn to make” (2: 69-70). “Corinna” was poet Elizabeth Thomas, who once came into possession of some of Pope’s early letters. In 1726, Thomas sold the letters to Curll, who published them, to Pope’s great embarrassment. It makes sense, then, that Pope would cover Curll in excrement the first chance he got. The “lake” does not deter Curll, however, who prays to Cloacina, goddess of the Roman sewer system, and receives her blessing.
Where as he fish’d her nether realms for Wit,
She oft had favour’d him, and favours yet.
Renew’d by ordure’s sympathetic force,
As oil’d with magic juices for the course,
Vig’rous he rises; from th’ effluvia strong
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along;
Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,
Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face (2: 101-08).
Curll seems to be quite at home in the muck and uses it to his advantage, a metaphorical description of his work as a highly successful seller of all manner of printed material.
The next competition involves seeing who can urinate the highest. The last major usage of these symbols occurs in the game for critics, who are quite literally competing to see who can fling the most filth and dive deepest into excrement. Pope’s use of sewage and waste in The Dunciad is hardly subtle, and Pope routinely uses this metaphor to highlight The Decline of Literary and Intellectual Standards.
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By Alexander Pope
