The Dunciad

The Dunciad In Four Books Edited by George Gilfillan By Alexander Pope Read by Denis Daly Alexander Pope was fiercely critical of writers whom he considered to have little talent and whom he liked to nominate as dunces. His most encyclopedic examination of these apostles of dullness is the Dunciad, a long satirical saga first published in a three-book version in 1728. A variorium edition followed shortly afterwards in 1729. In 1742, Pope added a fourth book, and a new, complete edition was published in 1743. The concept of an excoriation of dullness in mock heroic form appears to have been inspired by John Dryden's MacFlecknoe or, A satyr upon the True-Blue-Protestant Poet, T.S. (1682). Dryden's target was the poet and lowbrow playwright, Thomas Shadwell, who later replaced Dryden as Poet Laureate in 1688. In Pope's view, dullness is at war with reason, and he nominates Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber as the champions of insipidity. In the words of editor George Gilfillan, "The Duncia