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Mac Flecknoe

• By John Dryden

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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 realms 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)
• 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, Drydens
  is a jeu desprit, 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 Drydens
  masterpieces in English satirical poetry.

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• This humorous fancy forms the slight action of
  the piece, which terminates with a mock
  catastrophe suggested by one of Shadwells 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 speciesthe mock heroicwhich 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.