Mac Flecknoe

By King Meera -
John Dryden:
Born in a Puritan, land-owning gentry family
Converted to Catholicism
Second cousin of Jonathan Swift
Poet Laureate 1868
all for love...
Dryden influenced by Pindar's Odes, Poe's mock heroic satire
Horace, Virgil - classical
Dryden, Pope - Neoclassical
Arabella Burner - high society lady
The Rape of the Lock - Pope
Lampoon about Shadwell - Juvenalian
Ben Johnson and Shakespeare
Medal of John Bayes and Mac Flecknoe

Short note on satire in Dryden's poetry:
  • satire = mockery, making fun
  • literary device used for criticism
  • elements: humor, irony, sarcasm, parody (exaggerated mimicry), indirect criticism, burlesque
  • satire, heroic couplet (pairs of iambic pentameter, closed and self-contained - can stand by itself)
  • reinvented epic convention

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