Alexander Pope's The Dunciad is a mock-heroic, mimicking the style of epics like the Iliad and Odyssey to satirize Pope's contemporary literary and artistic world in England. This is a world that Pope feels is being taken over by unoriginal, boring, and unimportant work meant for the masses by writers, poets, and critics. To convey this, Pope imagines a mythical realm ruled by the Goddess of Dulness. She is looking for a new successor to be her right-hand, her King, to help her bring about true chaos and darkness in Britain.
The answer to her search is a poet named Bayes, who seems doubtful of his service to Dulness, unsure if he is pleasing her. Assuming he has failed and that he ought to pursue another profession, he builds an altar of his writing and others and lights it. Dulness sees his altar, puts it out, and takes Bayes to her realm, where he is now decreed King Cibber and applauded by all of Dulness' followers.
The Goddess then hosts a series of games to honor her new King as her band of followers marches through London, including a race for a "phantom poet," a pissing contest, a tickling contest, a diving contest, and finally a challenge to see which critic might stay awake longest while being read incredibly dull work. All of the listeners fall asleep, including the new king. After he falls asleep, Dulness takes him to her throne, places the sleeping Cibber on her lap, and anoints his eyes with dew and wraps him in her veil. As he sleeps Cibber dreams that he is being transported to the Underworld.
When he arrives at the Underworld, he is guided by Sibyl to Bavius to see where souls are made dull before being sent to Earth. He is amazed by the number of dull souls gathered on the shores of the River Styx. Elkanah Settle's departed spirit takes him to the Mount of Vision to understand the history of Dulness and how she came to acquire such power. Dulness does have a weakness: she lost ground only to the spread of Science and Logic, a territory that she has slowly but surely been winning back. Suddenly, Cibber is in the midst of a series of fantastical creatures and prophetic images he does not recognize. He is told this is the chaotic world that he can help Dulness usher in, cementing her as the ruler amidst chaos and night. Overwhelmed by the visions, Cibber wakes from his dream.
Book IV, however, depicts the world in which these prophecies have come to pass. Dulness has enslaved all of the bringers of Order and Reason, including the Muses, the Sciences, Religion, and History, amongst others. All of the servants of Dulness, from students to teachers to tribes and so on, arrive to address her and explain how they have carried out her will. She offers them a drink that will eliminate their sense of duty or obligation to their fellow man, morals, virtues, or art. Dulness, now sure of her imminent victory, gives her Titles and Decrees to her followers and allows darkness and chaos to take over all.
