Mac Flecknoe as a Satire Essay - 2419 Words.
John Dryden was the first acknowledged master of poetic satire in English. Of his three major satires, Mac Flecknoe, consisting of 217 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter, was the first to be.In Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe, dullness is the defining trait of the mock epic’s “hero”, and decay is employed as a theme and a weapon within the poem, underlined mostly as the decay of wit as the speaker dangles his victim and his reputation from his rhetorical noose.Mac Flecknoe Introduction. Once upon a time (the late seventeenth century), in place far, far away (England), there lived two poets: one named John Dryden, the other, Thomas Shadwell.They were both quite successful and well respected.
Mac Flecknoe Summary. Mac Flecknoe is the poet-king of the realm of nonsense. After many years as ruler, however, it comes time for him to step down. Ultimately, he chooses his son Thomas Shadwell, a poet of unparalleled dreadfulness, as his successor. Shadwell is the worst writer in all the land, and thus, the perfect man for the job.Mac Flecknoe by John Dryden: Summary Mac Flecknoe is the finest short satirical poem in which Dryden has treated Thomas Sahdwell with humorous contempt. Mac Flecknoe is both a personal and literary satire. Dryden presents Shadwell as a dull poetaster, a corpulent man and a plagiarist. Dryden’s uses the heroic couplet for satirical purposes.
Mac Flecknoe Launch Audio in a New Window. By John Dryden. A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S. All human things are subject to decay, And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey: This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long: In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute. This aged prince.
