The Dunciad Essay Questions

To which genre does the poem belong, and what are the main characteristics that identify the poem as part of that genre?

The Dunciad is a mock-heroic narrative poem. First of all, the poem is a narrative one because the speaker uses the poem to tell a story, similar to how a prose writer would tell a story in a novel. Generally, narrative poems are long and complex, containing many characters. The poem is also a mock-heroic poem because it is a satire. It is called "heroic" because it takes the way the hero was presented in many heroic poems and exaggerates certain features to the point where the hero is no longer the hero but rather a fool. While mock-heroic poems existed since the beginning of literature, they began to gain popularity in the 17th century, when mock-heroic poets began criticizing the exaggerated depictions of virtue and righteousness promoted by the chivalric poets of the medieval period.

How would you characterize King Cibber? And is he truly a "dunce"? Why or why not?

Readers can track Cibber from when he was the poet Bayes until his descent into the Underworld. They can discuss his actions, from building the altar to his musings on whether he should continue to serve Dulness. But there are also some brief moments where Cibber seems to be vulnerable to weakness in the form of Reason, both in his speech in Book I and in his speech in Book III. He has written many poorly plagiarized items, but while he is supposed to bring about Chaos's reign, we don't see Cibber actively participate in any of the final decisions and governing issues in Book IV, where these prophecies come to life. So is he an active agent of Dulness or not? Does this change whether he is a dunce?

The Dunciad is a satire—the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. How might a reader know that this text is a satire? What markers in the text tell us this?

This question could be answered in any number of ways, but it is important to consider the formal and literary elements of this text. One can talk about the poem's bathos and extreme contexts, and the hyperbole surrounding seemingly mundane events, by analyzing diction choices and syntactical structure. This is particularly true in Book II and its depictions of various contests and races. One could talk about how having the central god be Dulness and our "hero" be a dunce perverts and mocks the epic form. Focusing on the poem's the double-entendres and double-meanings would reveal how the text opens itself to more than one potential reading, a key element of satire.

What role do geography and landscape play in The Dunciad?

Pope is very invested in painting a picture of the literary world in England, and by infusing his poem with epic mythology, he is able to add symbolic meaning to places that were central to the literary world. Pope discusses Grub Street, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Whitehall, all of which were major printing and bookselling hubs during Pope's life. He surrounds these places with images of throngs of noisy writers, dirt, grime, and scandalous behavior. He also uses important mythological places like Elysium, the Underworld, Olympus, and so on, to show what is crucially at stake in these places of printing: the soul of England's intellectual life. How Pope paints verbal pictures of these places, as a result, is vital to understanding the threats he sees present within them in his contemporary world.

Is Pope guilty of the "dulness" or literary crimes he criticizes in the mock-epic? How does he use formal features to play into or contradict these practices?

On a surface level, Pope invokes many of the poetic attributes that he criticizes in The Dunciad. He falls back on a constant form of rhyming couplets, even as he repeatedly mocks how other writers hide frivolous content with pretty rhymes. He uses repetitive alliterative sounds often, which provides his poem with a rhythmic, predictable, and even occasionally light and childlike quality. He also pulls from the literary canon of other European nations, even basing his poem upon the understanding of Greek and Roman mythologies and epics that were so often used, translated, and reproduced by his peers. These "flaws," however, might not be purely hypocritical, but contribute on a formal level to Pope's mockery. By "mocking" and imitating the style of those he criticizes on a surface level, he leaves room for his own complex style to bleed through. Despite his springy and predictable structure, he fills his poem with double meanings, double entendres, and dark themes that undercut the lightness and lack of serious intellectual investment that his style mocks. He is constantly forcing the reader to second-guess whether what is at the surface is all that exists within any given line. This forces the reader to venture beyond their knowledge of other writers, tropes, or mythologies if they wish to understand Pope's poem, and this makes the poem itself an attempt to combat the dulness that it depicts.