MAC FLECKNOE

John Dryden
JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)
Dryden was the most influential writer of the Restoration
Wrote in every form important to the period
Occasional verse, comedy, tragedy, heroic plays, odes, satires, translations of classical
works
Produced critical essays concerning how to write these forms
1st neo-classical critic
1st comparative critic
Liberal neo-classicist
Tory views
Early career: Poems (Heroic Stanzas, Astrea Redux, Annus Mirabilis)
Then wrote Heroic Drama
Greatest period: Satire (Absalom and Achitophel, The Medal, Mac
Flecknoe)
Translations and Prose
Last work: Fables: Ancient and Modern
 POLITICAL CONTEXT
Exclusion Crisis
The Whig agitation to exclude from succession to the throne
Charles II’s brother James (on the grounds that he is a Roman
Catholic)
To encourage Charles’s illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth
to claim the throne
Dryden took the Tory side
Absalom and Achitophel attacked the Duke of Monmouth and
the Earl of Shaftesbury, the founder of the Whig Party, and
supports monarchy
The Medal attacked the Earl of Shaftesbury
Thomas Shadwell replied to The Medal with The Medal of
John Bayes, attacking Dryden
Dryden wrote Mac Flecknoe, attacking Shadwell
 MAC FLECKNOE (1682)
A satiric poem of 217 lines
Written in heroic couplets
First English mock heroic poem
Uses the elevated style of the classical epic to satirize human follies
Became the model for Pope’s The Dunciad
Subtitle “A Satyr upon the True-Blew-Protestant Poet, T.S.”
True-blue means “staunchly loyal”
Makes fun of Thomas Shadwell, playwright and poet
Dryden presents him as Mac (son of) Richard Flecknoe, an even
less accomplished poet
Mac is an Irish word, meaning they are remote, uncivilized people
Richard Flecknoe had died recently
The theme is the choice of Shadwell by Flecknoe as his heir to the
kingdom of nonsense and dullness in prose and verse
THE DISAGREEMENT WITH
SHADWELL

Dryden disagreed with Shadwell over the merits of

Ben Jonson’s wit

Shadwell was staunchly Protestant and resisted the

accession of the Catholic James II, whom Dryden
supported

Dryden was Tory, Shadwell was Whig

 MAC FLECKNOE: OPENING
LINES
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was called to empire, and had governed long;
In prose and verse was found without dispute,
Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute.
This agèd prince, now flourished in peace,
And blessed with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To settle the succession of the state;
The first line of the poem creates the illusion of its being an
epic poem of vast dimensions about a great hero
Flecknoe is presented as being the king of the realm of
Nonsense
His kingdom extends all up and down the empty Atlantic Ocean; he
dwells in the pompous city of Augusta (London)
The old king Flecknoe determines to give up his crown and to choose
the dullest of his children as his successor
Quickly, he determines upon “Sh—,” a man with no talent
and who is stupid and always at war with wit
His writings are bad enough to make him the appropriate heir to the
kingdom of Dullness
Shadwell is described as fat, a dunce, the “last great prophet of
tautology”
 CORONATION SCENE

Next the poet describes Shadwell’s coronation scene

The coronation happens in a neighborhood of brothels and
inferior theaters where real drama does not exist
Crowds of third-rate poets and hack authors throng to his
ceremonial inauguration
Dryden also alludes to some of the plays written by the original
Shadwell, like Epsom Wells and Psyche
He also makes fun of another contemporary writer, Singleton,
who is envious that he wasn’t chosen as successor to the throne.
Dryden connects Shadwell’s writing with human waste and
compares him with a historical military commander, Hannibal,
to suggest that Shadwell’s purpose is to destroy wit and replace it
with dullness.
SHADWELL’S APPEARANCE

Shadwell arrives in Augusta, dressed like a king

Instead of 'Persian carpets a stock of dull books were
spread over the way, along which poetasters lead a
procession to the throne.
Instead of the ball and sceptre, Shadwell holds a mug of
ale in his left hand and a copy of Flecknoe’s play Love’s
Kingdom in his right
Shadwell swears to maintain true dullness and to wage
perpetual war with truth and sense
A wreath featuring sleep-inducing opium poppies
crowns his head, and at the conclusion of the ceremony,
twelve owls, symbols of stupidity, are released to fly aloft
 FLECKNOE’S SPEECH

Here, Flecknoe, like an ancient priest, becomes inspired and

oracular, and gives a vast seventy-one-line speech
Gives advice on writing
Urges Shadwell to trust his own gifts, not labour to be dull
In his plays, both wits and fops (dandies) should be modelled on
himself, for there won’t be any difference between the two
Instead of imitating great playwrights like Jonson or successful
ones like Etherege, he should make poetasters his models.
Like himself, Shadwell’s characters are dull.
Unlike Jonson or Charles Sedley, he indulges too much in farce,
physical humour and obscene language.
Indeed, Shadwell should give up drama and satire and turn to
cheap genres like anagrams, pattern poems, acrostics or songs
 FLECKNOE’S SPEECH

Heavens bless my son, from Ireland let him reign

To far Barbadoes on the Western main;

Of his dominion may no end be known,

And greater than his father's be his throne.

Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his pen;

He paus'd, and all the people cry'd Amen.

Then thus, continu'd he, my son advance

Still in new impudence, new ignorance….

 FLECKNOE’S SPEECH
Success let other teach, learn thou from me
Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.
Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,
Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;
Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
And in their folly show the writer's wit.
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence,
And justify their author's want of sense.
Let 'em be all by thy own model made
Of dullness, and desire no foreign aid:
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay let thy men of wit too be the same,
All full of thee, and differing but in name;
But let no alien Sedley interpose
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull,
Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;
But write thy best, and top; and in each line,
Sir Formal's oratory will be thine.
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,
And does thy Northern Dedications fill.
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.
Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,
And Uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part;
What share have we in Nature or in Art?
Where did his wit on learning fix a brand,
And rail at arts he did not understand?
Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein,
Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain?
Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse,
Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce?
When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,
As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?
But so transfus'd as oil on waters flow,
His always floats above, thine sinks below.
This is thy province, this thy wondrous way,
New humours to invent for each new play:
This is that boasted bias of thy mind,
By which one way, to dullness, 'tis inclin'd,
Which makes thy writings lean on one side still,
And in all changes that way bends thy will.
Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence
Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.
 MOCK HEROIC CONVENTIONS 

IN MAC FLECKNOE

Uses the elevated style of the classical epic poem to

satirize human follies
Blends grandeur of heroic poetry and triviality of low
comedy
Ironic juxtaposition of Shadwell with legendary figures
Arian, the legendary musician
Ascanius, the great emperor of Rome
Hannibal, the hero of Carthage
Christ (whose way was prepared by John the Baptist,
who represents Flecknoe)
 THE ENDING

Flecknoe does not complete this oration

In the middle of his speech, a trapdoor opens, and he drops
down into a pit and disappears
A wind bears his mantle aloft
Like the prophet Elija’s mantle descending upon Elisha,
Flecknoe’s mantle rises upward and then lands upon Shadwell
Thus the poem comes to a sudden disruptive halt by the
introduction of deus ex machina
The new king has never received a proper coronation and is
appropriately left speechless by this ill omen
 AS A “MOCK HEROIC
POEM” (MOCK EPIC)

Dryden considered Mac Flecknoe primarily a satire,

rather than an epic (Dryden called both poems Mac
Flecknoe and The Medal Varronian satire)
Varronian satire or Menippean satire is usually long like a
novel, and attacks mental attitudes rather than individuals
Typical neoclassical style
Reaction against the overuse & stereotyping of the epic
style
Tradition of mock heroic poetry
Began in the pseudo-Homeric “Battle of Frogs and Mice”
Continued in Pope; “mock heroic novel” was written by Fielding
 DRYDEN’S SATIRE

Dryden’s satires are characterized by the force of

subtlety

Dryden says in “A Discourse concerning Satire,”

which was prefaced to his translation of Juvenal:
“How easy is it to call rogue and villain, and that
wittily!  But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a
blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those
opprobrious terms!”