The Dunciad: A Mock Epic?
Honors English
The fourth book of the Dunciad describes the fall and slow death of the English society that once taught him all the things he knew. He lashes out at his critics, accusers, and nay Sayers in his allegorical poem. It symbolizes a mock epic because of the elaborate use of words, calling on inspiration from a higher force, and using his work not so much to tell a story, but to point out the faults of a social order that can’t or chooses not to see what they’re really doing.
It opens with:
“Yet, yet a moment, one dim ray of light
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!” [Line 1, A.P.]
“Suspend a while your force inertly strong,
Then take at once the Poet, and the song.” [Line 7, A.P.]
In tradition of the epic, Alexander calls for the aide of an outside power. He doesn’t follow the rules completely, and replaces the muse with Chaos and Night, but does this only to enforce what he’s trying to do with his point and gives you a picture of where he’s going next. In epics, there’s always a battle or a scene that is brazenly described, adding drama, making it a little more important and draws the reader in. When Alexander Pope describes the room as the educators stand before the Goddess, and the scene where Dullness triumphs over everything that breathes life into human creativity, he makes it a point to describe each scene as a play-by-play battle in itself. An advocate of the empr...
The inimitable novel “A Confederacy of Dunces” written by author John Kennedy Toole was not even published until after his suicide. The story in the pages of this novel reveals a hilarious, funny, sidesplitting, yet brilliantly crafted fictional masterpiece. The picaresque novel focuses on the life of the main character Ignatius J. Reilly. The character of Ignatius is a protagonist against the modern age. In his writing Toole saturates the narrative of the novel with an absurd sense of humor that stimulates both laughter and sympathy from readers. With his unique writing style Toole seamlessly combines, symbolism, sadness and humor in a literary
Clark, William Bedford. "All Toole's Children: A Reading of A Confederacy of Dunces." Essays in Literature 14.2 (1987): 269-280.
Social phenomena have always been narrated by artists. Art is a cathartic way to express one’s negative feelings; poems help poets and their readers or listeners to deal with people's frustrations. War, man's tendency to wage aggression upon each other, is the most criticized issue among intellectuals in the society. An artist's opinions, especially when conflicting with the established social norm of the dominant society, may be disguised and hidden beneath metaphors and complex analogies. Beowulf, a pacifist poem, was written as an expression of frustrations with the wars that constantly occurred during the Anglo-Saxon period. It illustrates, in a cynical, grim light, how people futily die in battle, represented by the speech of a messenger and by Hildeburh’s story. Beowulf also describes cowardly soldiers and a deceitful world that collaborate to invalidate the naive ideals of war.
Though its more lyrical passages present detailed and evocative imagery, substantial portions of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets afford no such easy approach. Since the initial appearance of "Burnt Norton" it has been a critical commonplace to regard these portions of the text as at once its most conceptually profound and its most formally prosaic. Of course, the Quartets offer enough cues toward this critical attitude that it may fairly be said to reside within the poem at least as much as it is imposed from without. As the text of the poem itself apparently gives license to the view that its "poetry does not matter," the preponderance of critical attention to the Quartets' non-lyrical passages has been devoted to philosophical and theological paraphrase of its argument, to explicating the system of belief or thought behind the words. Meanwhile, relatively little attention has been paid to the working of the poetry itself, to the construction of the presumed meaning, in these "discursive" or "conceptual" passages. Seduced by the desire for a systematic argument, criticism has overestimated these passages' straightforwardness and largely neglected their ambiguity and indeterminacy. The seductive voice of argument – which is already a voice within the poem – invites conceptual scrutiny but repels formal analysis; it displaces the concerns of "poetry" in order to work its poetry undetected. I will be reading critically several critical discussions, but always in the belief that the criticism's concerns are not projected onto the poem from without, but express the critical voices within the poem.
In the epic poem of Beowulf the author uses elements of fiction, such as characterization, setting, irony, and symbolism to show the reader that a person’s identity has a measure of control on how they live their life and perceive the world around them.
Bloomfield, Morton W. New Literary History. Winter ed. N.p.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Print. Vol. 2 of Allegory as Interpretation. 3 vols. First.
The Anglo-saxons were known for their values such as strength and courage both is used in the epic poem called “Beowulf” and in the book “The Language Of Literature”; However, there are many other Anglo-saxon values in the epic poem. This poem Beowulf teaches readers about the past of the Anglo-saxons values that they have many more to come when the readers can try or saw another value that the Anglo-saxons
In the past, individuals utilized poetry and music to discuss important parts of society and input their opinion. Oftentimes, the most important and controversial topics are the ones written about. The poetry was a reflection of the time period and provided commentary about the role of heros in society. The story of Beowulf was used to inspire young Anglo-Saxon boys to be brave, loyal, and heroic. This piece of literature highlights the important traits of being a successful warrior. Furthermore, “The Wanderer” demonstrates how an individual must remain loyal to their lord. Even though the bonds of death, the wanderer was devoted to his lord. He was alone, dreary, and depressed without the person who gave him a home and a sense of belonging. The
An epic story of a flawless hero through an Anglo-Saxon society who faces the wrath of an all-evil black-and-white monster becomes juxtaposed with the flawed and vulnerable character of Beowulf inspired by today’s society when analyzing the original poem of Beowulf versus the film of Beowulf. Through the character of Beowulf many centuries later, the idea of a hero is realized in today’s society to be morphed towards a more realistic, imperfect human being. The poetic version teaches that in order to achieve such heroism, you must be viewed as a flawless warrior with no human weakness, influenced by an Anglo-Saxon culture. In contrast, the modern-version of Beowulf takes a turn towards the audience
Beowulf is one of the oldest, most renown poems from between the 7th and 10th century. The author is unknown, however, in the 21st century students from all over still read and study this epic poem about a magnanimous man named, Beowulf. Beowulf is a man of unrivaled strength and courage. With great strength and courage in the 7th century comes great rewards and acknowledgments. But, with this famous stature at times comes intense pride and boastfulness. Beowulf exemplifies such pride all throughout his adventures as a great savior. As readers, we begin to ask ourselves whether or not this pride that Beowulf embodies is an asset to him or a tragic flaw. At times within the poem, Beowulf’s pride achieves him astonishing accomplishments, but,
Beowulf is an epic story of a brave man guarded by God. He is an Anglo-Saxon hero, who is celebrated still to this day. The semantic interpretations of heroism can differ from person to person. The Christian definition of a hero reflects when a person is selfless, is working to glorify God, and is loved by his or her people. If the reader observes Beowulf’s character, he fulfills all these criteria making him a hero. Furthermore, his heroic characteristics manifest themselves through many literary techniques such as epithets, foreshadowing, and allusions.
Beowulf is the conventional title of an Old English epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature due to the fact that it is the oldest surviving epic poem of Old English and also the earliest vernacular English literature. Tragedy and epic have been much discussed as separate genres, but critics have not hesitated to designate certain characters and events in epics as tragic. For the most part, they have assumed or asserted an identity between epic and dramatic tragedy. Even in The Odyssey, Penelope and Telemachus suffer enough to rouse their deep passions and to force them like the tragic sufferer to consider their own predicaments in the world they live in. C.L. Wrenn wrote on Beowulf, “A Germanic hero is a tragic hero, who shows his highest greatness not alone in winning glory by victory, but rather by finding his supremely noble qualities especially in the moment of death in battle” (Wrenn 91). Beowulfs hubris, the representation of wealth as a profiling characteristic for the villages, and Beowulf’s ability to find his might in his moment of “death,” all show the very nature of the poem which defines it as not only an epic poem, but also a tragic one.
The period in time that we refer to today as Old-English constitutes The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is the most well-known example to the general public; it depicts the Pagan views of violence and bloodshed interconnecting with the battle of Beowulf and the monstrous Grendel to create imagery of the Christian ethic of Good vs. Evil. This time in history, known as Old English, constitutes the heroic ethos. The heroic idiom represents three core values, God, community and fighting. Both the poems Beowulf and Battle of Maldon exemplify the meaning of the heroic ethos, both poems deal with defending their community by fighting and thanking God for allowing them to obtain victory or die a noble death in the process. However, while the hero is glorified his housecarls appear to be the ones suffering the most from the actions of the hero.
Clark, William Bedford. "All Toole's Children: A Reading of A Confederacy of Dunces." Essays in Literature 14.2 (1987): 269-280.
Henry Fielding felt great concern towards the embellished stylization of epic novels, and in order to relay his critiques of this popularized genre, he constructed an epic parody to reveal the turgid grandiose nature of such works through a sarcastic spoof. Commenced with his mordant invocation of a muse, Henry Fielding’s epic parody, Tom Jones emphasizes droll concern with the classical epic style by christening Homeric epithets and personifications with a satirical twist.