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"Mac Flecknoe"
by John
Dryden
Mac Flecknoe (Powerpoint
File)
Editions
►The first edition of Mac Flecknoe
appeared in 1682 but the badness of the text makes it unlikely that it was
authorized by Dryden.
►The present text follows that of the "authorized edition" first published
in Miscellany Poems, 1684.
►The sub-title, "A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S.", refers
to Thomas Shadwell.
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Thomas
Shadwell
►Shadwell was a staunch adherent of
the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Dryden's dislike of his Whiggish opinions is
sufficiently indicated in the title-page to this poem. Shadwell answered
Dryden's attack on Shaftesbury in The Medall with an abusive satire
entitled The Medal of John Bayes, published in May, 1682; Mac Flecknoe
appeared in about October of the same year. Dryden also pilloried Shadwell
in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel.
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Richard Flecknoe
►Mac Flecknoe is a purely personal
satire in motive and design.
►Richard Flecknoe was an Irishman, formerly in Catholic orders, who (if a
note to The Dunciad is to be trusted) had ¡§laid aside the mechanic part of
priesthood¡¨ to devote himself to literature.
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The Real of
Non-sense
►Difficult to understand why (except
for the fact that he had been a priest) Dryden should have determined to
make this harmless, and occasionally agreeable, writer of verse a type of
literary imbecility.
►Flecknoe must be supposed to have died (d. 1678) not long before Dryden
wrote his satire, in which the ¡§aged prince¡¨ is represented as abdicating
his rule over ¡§the realms of Non-sense¡¨ in favour of Shadwell.
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Satire and Mock
Heroic
►Satire: to make fun of sb./sth. in
the hope of improvement, but Mac Flecknoe seems a personal attack.
►Satire/ humor (Swift, Pope, Mark Twain¡K)
►Tone: sharper in satire, gentle in humor
►Techniques used: irony, mock-epic (mock heroic)
►Mock heroic: uses grand style & exalted lang. to talk sth. trivial, low,
mean, or absurd (at least sth. unimportant); low content with high style.
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Mock Heroic
►Mock heroic: A satirical imitation
or burlesque of the heroic manner or style.
►Mac Flecknoe assumed the proportions of an elaborate satire against a
whole tribe of dunces as well as against one egregious dunce, Dryden¡¦s is
a jeu d¡¦esprit, though one brilliant enough to constitute an unanswerable
retort upon unwarrantable provocation. Slight as it is, Mac Flecknoe holds
a place of its own among Dryden¡¦s masterpieces in English satirical
poetry.
►This humorous fancy forms the slight action of the piece, which
terminates with a mock catastrophe suggested by one of Shadwell¡¦s own
comedies. Thus, with his usual insight, Dryden does not make any attempt
to lengthen out what is in itself one of the most successful examples of
the species¡Xthe mock heroic¡Xwhich it introduced into English literature.
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Buskins and
Socks
►74 The Nursery, a theatrical school
for training boys and girls for the stage, was established in 1662.
►79-80 Buskins and socks are symbols respectively of tragedy and comedy,
associated here with the Elizabethan playwrights John Fletcher and Ben
Jonson.
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