The Dunciad

E166313

The Dunciad is Alexander Pope’s satirical mock-epic poem that attacks the spread of mediocrity and cultural decline in early 18th-century Britain.

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All labels observed (3)

Label Occurrences
The Dunciad canonical 6
The Dunciad Variorum 1
The New Dunciad 1

Statements (49)

Predicate Object
instanceOf mock-epic poem
poem
satirical poem
alsoKnownAs The Dunciad
surface form: The Dunciad Variorum

The Dunciad
surface form: The New Dunciad
associatedWith Quarrels of Authors
surface form: Pope–Cibber literary feud

Pope–Theobald controversy
author Alexander Pope
centralFigure Dulness
countryOfOrigin Kingdom of Great Britain
criticizes Grub Street
surface form: Grub Street publishing

commercial booksellers
low literary standards
political corruption
firstPublicationDate 1728
genre mock-heroic
satire
influenced 18th-century literary criticism
later English satire
influencedBy Homeric epics
John Dryden
Virgil's Aeneid
literaryForm narrative poem
literaryMovement Augustan literature
majorRevisionPublicationDate 1742
1743
meter heroic couplets
notableFeature allegorical representation of stupidity and dullness
extensive notes and commentary in Variorum edition
mock-heroic invocation of the Muse
numberOfBooks 3
4
originalLanguage English
parodies Homer
Virgil
classical epic
partOf Alexander Pope's satirical works corpus
periodOfComposition late 1720s
personSatirized Colley Cibber
Grub Street writers
Lewis Theobald
booksellers
hack writers
primaryTheme attack on mediocrity
commercialization of publishing
corruption of literature
cultural decline
revisedEditionPublicationDate 1729
settingPeriod early 18th-century Britain

Referenced by (8)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Augustan literature notableWork The Dunciad
Alexander Pope notableWork The Dunciad
The Dunciad alsoKnownAs The Dunciad
this entity surface form: The Dunciad Variorum
The Dunciad alsoKnownAs The Dunciad
this entity surface form: The New Dunciad
Imitations of Horace relatedWork The Dunciad