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UNIT 24 MAC FLECKNOE structure Objectives Introduction Introduction to Mac Flecknoe The Development of Dryden 24.3.1 Juvenilia and Early Poetry 24.3.2 A Blind Alley (1668-1681) 24.3.3 A Short Bloom (1681-86) 24.3.4 The Mellowed Trans-cultural Poet (1 687- 1700) Can Satire be Great Poetry The Critical Debate and Heritage Interpretation 24.6.1 The Title 24.6.2 The Structure of the Poem 24.6.3 Textual Analysis The Ode : Alexander's Feast Interpretation Let US Sum Up Suggested Readings Questions 24.0 OBJECTIVES The objective of this unit is to help you study Mac Flecknoe and Alexander's Feast, the two best poems of John Dryden of their respective types, with a view particularly to * understanding the texts and being able to explain passages fiom them, * knowing their social and literary context, particularly, the popularity of verse- satire. * appreciating the mock-heroic design, of Mac Flecknoe and the musical design of Alexander's Feast, * analysing the poetic style of Dryden-diction, imagery, metaphor, speech, narrative etc. * appreciating the verse-forms - the heroic couplet and the Ode, and * evaluating the poems by deciding their place among the poetical works of Dryden and as classics of English poetry. 24.1 INTRODUCTION ' In this Unit, we shall study Mac Flecknoe, the first literary satire and one of the great mock-heroic poems in English. We shall also study Alexander's Feast - the second Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. Our detailed discussion of Mac Flecknoe will make us agree with T.S. Eliot in whose view the poem was 'the piece of Dryden which is most fun, which is the most sustained display of surprise of wit fiom line to line. Dryden thought that Alexander's Feast; or The Power of Musique, an Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day, published three years before his death, was 'the best of all my poetry', and so did his contemporaries. The Neoclassical Satire, possible only in society, became poetic in Dryden's society, because poetry Poets was adequately social, even public, and society was sufficiently literary. The Restoration of 1660 not only changed sensibility but also divided society into Whig and Tory. The class-cleavage was felt as political rather than economic in Dryden's time. And the divorce between religion and politics was not yet complete. All this is illustrated in Mac Flecknoe. The development of Dryden from the heroic to the mock-heroic, from the serious to the serio-comic, was a self-discovery which may be compared with the late flowering of the genius of W.B.Yeats. The control and complexity of the ironic tone in Absalom and Achitophel written at the age of fifty is the first sign of mahuity. And there was no decline since then. But more than two decades of criticism, self- examination and experiment, mainly dramatic, had to pass before Dryden could mature and discover his original genius and assert his poetic authority. The interpretation of Dryden's poetry has led to a critical debate on the nature of poetry between the classicists and the romanticists. Satire, lai~guageand verse are all controversial. We shall see that, despite the debate, Mac Flecknoe and 'Alexander's Feast' belong no less to the mainstream of English poetry than the romantic lyric of the last century or the waste land of our own. 24.2 INTRODUCTION TO MAC FLECKNOE Literature is a formation within language, which is a primary instance of the cultural system. Authors and readers are placed and defined inside this system as well as systems of race, gender and class. Graduate students of English literature in India read and study Mac Flecknoe within the network of these systems. They operate inside specific institutions (like IGNOU) which shape their practice. Eac'h act of reading a text prepares us for reading the next. Literature as well as criticism are, in the words of Paul de Man (1979), " condemned (or privileged) to be forever the most rigorous and consequently, the most unreliable language in terms of which man names and transforms himself '. Reading, according to him, is an argument, 'an epistemological event prior to being an ethical or aesthetic value'. The 'epistemological event' that our study of Mac Flecknoe is going to be has the following main aspects: (1) The autobiographical, social, historical, literary and poetic elements of the experience of the poet which inspired the poem: its origin and genesis, in other words. (2) The Poem as a communication from the poet to the reader. History and Form. Satire and Poetry, (3) The interpretation of the text : its mock-heroic form, the poetic technique - versc, diction, rhetoric, style. (4) The evaluation of the value-system that the poem symbolises. Mac Flecknoe was published anonymously in October, 1682. The date of its composition and its authorship remained uncertain for ten years after publication. The first edition was piratical and Dryden had denied authorship to Shadwell. But that ' was merely being 'polite', for Dryden claimed it after Sha&el,lls.death in December, 1692. Thomas Shadwell, the target of satire in Mac Flecknoe, was born in lq42, and thus younger by more than ten years to John Dryden. He was a dramatist and professed imitator of Ben Jonson. His witty talk and amusing writing made him popular. His Mec Fleckrroe plays abo~din concrete imagery, vigorous metaphor and picturesque phrases. They show, as Rochester put it, 'great mastery with little care'. A h~~moristand caricaturist, he was indebted to the French Moliere and the English Ben Jonson. He ranges from cheerful force to coarse verisimilitude. 'His prosaic but vigorous mind plants the reader in Restoration life more faithfully than does the wit-and-intrigue comedy of Dryden, Etherage and Congreve'. The Sullen Lovers (1 668) and Be Miser (1672) are comedies by him which have I their source in Moliere. His Jonsonian Comedy of Humours is exemplified , particularly by The Humorists (1670) and Epsoin Wells (1672). He was witty enough to make Don Juan the hero of The Libertine (1676). Other popular plays by him were The Squire of Alsatia (1688) and Bury Fair (1689). He gives a picture of his age "roughly rather than finely drawn, and, to that extent, more veracious". IIe loved the country no less than the town. Bellamy in his Buly Fair expresses his own attitude. As a drama-critic, he advocated a development of Comedy on the line of Ben Jonson. He said : "All dramatic poets ought to imitate him (Jonson)". He disapproved of the prevailing form of the Comedy of manners. He believed that the delineation of humours was more fmitful. Comedy as an instrument of social and moral refom I could be created only by a satirical portraiture of real characters drawn from ordinaiy life. The realistic representation of human characters with satirical intent was, according to him, the essence of comedy. Keen observation and judgement was to be shown in the selection of humours. 'Judgement does indeed comprehend wit; for fancy rough-draws, but judgement smooths and finishes', he explained. In the Epilogue to The Humorists, he gave the definition of humour: , ' %humour is the bias of the mind By which with violence 'tis inclined It makes our actions lean on one side still And in all changes that way bend the will. And in the Dedication to The Virtuoso he asserted: 'Four of the humours are entirely new and (without variety) I may say I ne'er produced a comedy that had not some natural humour in it, not represented before and I hope, I never shall'. He was never tired of praising Ben Jonson. In the Epilogue to The Humorists, he said: But to out-go all other men would be 0 noble Ben, less than to follow thee , Sytherland (1958) allowed Shadwell "to creep in at the bottom" of a supposed list of I twelve best English comic dramatists. I But the real or historical Shadwell is less important, at least in this context, than Dryden's Shadwell. It is, therefore, more relevant to know Dryden's relations with him. Dryden had been friendly to Shadwell during the first decade of their acquaintance as dramatists fi-om 1668 to 1679. He had praised Shadwell's genius in I I an Epilogue to The Volunteers, a play by Shadwell, written a Prologue to another play by him, A True Widow. They had worked together in preparing the critical comments on Settle's Empress of Morocco. But, during this same period, Dryden had I I also been engaged in a literary dispute or debate with Shadwell on rhyme, wit, 1 humour and other issues, In Dryden's view Shadwell had no understanding of true wit or the merit of Ben Jonson whom he professed to imitate. 'I Know', said Dryden, I 'I honour Ben Jonson more than my little critiques, because without vanity I may own, I understand him better' (Dedication to the Assignation 1673). Secondly, professional rivalry between Dryden and the younger Shadwell is easy to imagine. Dryden's appointment as Poet Laureate in 1668 may have made Shadwell envious. Ironically, Shadwell succeeded Dryden as the Poet Laureate in 1685, The i?eoclas$iCal But the Exclusion Bill of 1679 brought about a change in social life. The revelry and Poets entertainment of the Restoration court and society which had lasted for about two decades ceased. And, the political turmoil that ensued with the Bill divided society and separated friends and turned them into enemies as in the case of Dryden and Shadwell. Absalom and Achitophel(1681) was published a week before Shaftesbury (Achitophel) was released.
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