Mac Flecknoe & Alexander's Feast

UNIT 24 MAC FLECKNOE -http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22185/1/Unit-24.pdf

INTRODUCTION TO MAC FLECKNOE

he '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 Shadwell’s.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 work - The Sullen Lovers (1 668) and Be Miser (1 672), The Humorists (1670) and Epsoin Wells (1672).The Libertine (1676). The Squire of Alsatia (1688) and Bury Fair (1689).

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.The realistic representation of human characters with satirical intent was, according to him, the essence of comedy. He was never tired of praising Ben Jonson.

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 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'. 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.

But the Exclusion Bill of 1679 brought about a change in social life. The revelry and 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. The whigs felt triumphant, and struck a medal in his honour. Dryden made a second attack in The Medal which he subtitled 'A Satire against Sedition'. One of the immediate replies was The Medal of John Bayes. This was attributed to Shadwell. Mac Flecknoe, Dryden's reply, is for greater poetry. John Bayes, by the way, is the satirical name associated with Dryden's. It is the name of the satirical character in the Rehearsal (1671). Shadwell is believed to have contributed to this concoction as well. Moreover, he had criticised rhyme in Dryden's plays and the Tories including Dryden (their champion). Thus, literary and political provocations infuriated Dyden known for his calm reserve.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRYDEN

1. Juvenilia and Early Poetry: (1649- 1667)
2. A Blind Alley - Heroic Drama: (1668-1680)
3. A Short Bloom: (1 68 1-86)
4. The Mellowed Transcultural Poet: (1 687-1 700)

Juvenilia and Early Poetry

The first published poem of Dryden (written at the age of eighteen, while he was still at school), an elegy on the death of Lord Hastings, is at once characteristic and immature. The decasyllabic couplets and the 'public' theme of this poem were going to bear the stamp of his genius, but the diction reminiscent of the metaphysical decadence and the mechanical verse betray immaturity. His Heroic quatrains on the death of Cromwell (1659) reflect his tendency to use public occasions as poetic themes. His poems on the Restoration and the Coronation of Charles II, and a poem written in honour of Clarendon on New Year's Day 1662, are all in the decasyllabic couplet, for which his love becomes manifest.

In Dryden, the man who suffered and the artist who created were inseparable.

The most important poem of this phase, Annus Mirabilis (1667), is 'historical'. It describes 1666 - the year of Wonders.The Anglo-Dutch naval war and the defeats at sea, the plague and the Great Fire are the main themes. The poet views the events as temporary interruptions in England's advance to power and prosperity. The poems end on a prophetic note of the future glory of England. Dryden's hero possesses active and passive virtues derived from Christian and Roman traditions.

A Blind Alley (1668-1681)

The early poetry of Dryden is non-dramatic and non-satirical. It expresses a vigorous public spirit and the desire to write an epic.He wrote his first play in 1663 and kept writing plays for three decades. Comedies, tragedies and tragi-comedies - he attempted all these forms of dramatic composition. Regarding comedies.

First, he introduced rhyme in the speeches, for he believed rhyme to be "as natural and more effectual than blank verse" and 'the noblest kind of modern verse'.
Secondly, a serious play was to represent nature 'wrought up to a higher pitch'. This betrayed a love for romance beyond realism. And,
thirdly, love and honour were to be the main themes. 'Love is the passion which most predominates in our souls'

The Rehearsal (1672) ridiculed John Bayes, who was Dryden in a thin disguise. Tke resemblance of this author in the Skit with John Dryden in voice, dress, habit of taking snuff, personal gestures and favourite oaths made the identification unmistakable. The Satire was directed against the exaggeration of the poetic and dramatic technique. The rant and bombast, the harping on the theme of love and honour, the overreaching tendency was made to appear ridiculous and absurd. The satire was highly effective, and the heroic drama lost its popularity.

A Short Bloom (1681-86)

The first half of Dryden's long poetic career was spent in experimentation. He had been appointed Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal In 1670, and, before that, nominated a member of the Royal Society. But his experiment with drama did not succeed.

His fascination with the heroic, the romantic, the uncommon was over. He mocked heroes as 'a race of men who can never enjoy quiet in themselves, till they have taken it from all the world'.

He traced the etymology of the English word Satire to the RomaS.cvord 'Satura' 'which signifies full, and abundant; and full also of variety, in which nothing is wanting to its due perfection'.

The personal drama of Dryden is enacted in The Hind and the Panther (1686). Humility and Charity - the Christian virtues - confront pride and malice. A belligerent and proud poet finds, and states, how difficult it is to live a religious life in the world. The sects of Christianity - Puritan, Protestant and Roman Catholic - were hostile to each other in Dryden's England.

The Mellowed Trans-cultural Poet (1687-1700)

The glorious Revolution of 1688 was followed by the beginning of the Hanoverian Rule of England. Dryden must have approved of the triumph of the British Parliament. But Shaclwell succeeded him as the Poet Laureate in 1688, and all other I expressions of royal favour were withdrawn from Dryden, mainly because he was a Roman Catholic, a Papist. Religion, Politics and Poetry were mixed up in Dryden's life and the result was nothing short of a mess.

Some of the best non-satirical poems of Dryden were written during this phase. Apart from the two songs for St.Cecilia's Day in which the music is striking harmony of numbers, Threnbdia Augustalis (1685), written on the death of Charles, and the Britannia Rediviva (1688), on the birth of the prince, the poems 'To the Pious Memory of the Accomplish Young lady, Mrs. Anne Killifgrew, the best of his lyrics, To the Memory of Mr. Oldham, are most important. In the elegy on Anne Killigrew

CAN SATIRE BE GREAT POETRY

The poetry of Dryden at its best is satirical, and it is generally held that satire cannot be great poetry. Literary Satire, of which Mac Flecknoe is the first example in English, is judicial and demonstrative. The satirist protests in public, addressing an audience and trying to persuade it to accept his point .of view. Dryden had acquired the art of declamation from his school teacher Richard Busby at Westminster. He regarded rhetoric as an art. Dryden claimed for the poet the liberty of poetic licence, the licence to use tropes and figures. 'Imaging', according to him, is 'the very light and life of poetry'.

Pope said : Satire 'heals with Morals what it hurts with Wit'. But Comedy is different. The writer of Comedy accepts the imperfections, follies and vices of life. The comic poet tolerates, even accepts, while the satirist judges and punishes. He wishes to restore balance, correct errors. His intention is to expose or deride. The satirist deliberately distorts, for he sees only one aspect of the truth, not the whole truth.

The comic imagination of Dryden created, in Mac Flecknoe, a mock-heroic fantasy. Shadwell is almost an excuse for the poem. Mac Flecknoe is one of the best verse-satires in English, 'and the first literary satire. His political satire has 'public' themes, but Mac Flecknoe is personal satire which the poet wrote to please himself.

Pope had hinted at Dryden's carelessness as a poet, but Dr. Johnson was the first to start or suggest, a critical debate on Dryden which is still going on. Generally, the eighteenth century critics valued Dryden very highly, but the nineteenth century romantic critics depreciated his poetry as unpoetic or prosaic.

INTERPRETATION

Interpretation is a process of perpetual 'transcoding', a rhetorical activity. Literary texts yield analogical rather than conceptual meaning, as they stand midway between experience and knowledge, the empirical and the theoretical.

The full title of Mac Flecknoe is Mac Flecknoe or a satire upon the True-Blue Protestant Poet T.S. : 'Mac' is a Gaelic word meaning 'Son' : 'Mac Flecknoe' means 'Son of Flecknoe'. Flecknoe is the historical Richard Flecknoe believed to have died in the same year (1678) as Mac Flecknoe was composed. Fleclrnoe was an Irish Roman Catholic Priest who had been satirised by Andrew Marwell in a poem entitled 'Flecknoe, an English Priest at Rome', Dryden found the connection between a bad poet and Flecknoe natural. The name had become a literary or fictional synonym for a poet and dullard. And so Dryden chose it. But the analogy of Augustus, the Roman emperor, for Flecknoe is a stroke of the mock-heroic genius. The elevation of a bad poet to the status of a monarch 'called to Empire' young, and governing long, seems more serious than comic in the opening couplet.

'True-Blue' means an extreme whig, and its collocation with 'Protestant' is remarkable. Religion was mixed with politics in Dryden's England in a manner as bad as the present-day fundamentalism or communalism in conflict with statesmanship.

T.S. is Thomas Shadwell, the primary target, the 'hero' of the poem. 'He never was a poet of God's making'. At his nativity, the midwife had prophetically blessed him, 'Be thou dull'.

The Structure of the Poem

The mock-heroic epic framework of the poem means, among other things, that, unlike Pope, Dryden, could give his satire a narrative form. If he could not write an epic, it was partly because the mock-epic expressed the spirit of his age better.

Mac Flecknoe presents the imaginary coronation in the pseudo-literary sphere. The selection of the successor, the 'happy' auguries, the prophecy of the future of the prince, the farcical and evanescent coronation, are all ingredients of a heroic plot. Satirical fantasy transforms a non-event into a seemingly real event. Shadwell is found the fittest of the sons 'to reign, and wage immortal war with wit'. Notice how 'reign' and 'wage immortal war' are playfully misapplied to create mock heroic effect. A hero reigns, wages and wins immortal wars. A mock-hero wages 'war with wit', and the poem of his creator makes him 'immortal' as really a villain. Dryden's censure is dramatically masked as Flecknoe's praise for Shadwell.

The first speech of Flecknoe is an avalanche of twenty two couplets culminating crushingly in a triplet. Then the satirist-narrator takes over. The art is at once narrative, dramatic and descriptive.

Textual Analysis

Couplet 1 is a general reflection. It soon becomes evident (line 6) that the serious tone is really serio-comic. The funny and ironic comparison of Flecknoe with the . Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar. The word 'Non-sense' in line 6 shocks the reader into an awareness of the real satirical meaning intended by the poet.

'Lucid interval' means 'short spells of sanity between fits of lunacy', 'Lucid' literally means 'bright' and 'clear'. Metaphorically, it means clear reasoning or literary style. Shadwell was the best choice, because he never 'deviates into sense'. The exaggeration or distortion is deliberate.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44181/mac-flecknoe

Explained from pages 12to18 - http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22185/1/Unit-24.pdf

Notice the sacrosanct mock-heroic manner of abrupt end. Literary allusions, Cartoon, Caricature, parody, burlesque, lampoon are the poetic devices used.

The Poetic Diction in the Mac Flecknoe

I) The most important words arc taken fiom the register of royalty. The poem is full of them. Some are mentioned here:

Nouns - Monarchs, Augustus, Empire, Subject, realms, prince, State, majesty, monarch, nations, King John of Portugal, Commander, Prince of thy harmonious band, Throne, Empress Fame, coronation, the Nations, Sceptre, Captain of the Guard, Ascanius, Hannibal, Realms, Romulus, Dominion, Kingdom, mantle, triumph, rule of sway, province.

Verbs - summons, governed, to reign, to wage war, rule, reign.

Adjectives - absolute, royal, imperial.

Other words page - 18to20

ALEXANDER'S FEAST OR THE POWER OF MUSIC

Poetry and Music

The modern separation of music from poetry started in the 16th century. The main cause of the separation was the development of instrumental music. But there was also a reaction against this tendency. By Dryden's time, poetry was expected to meet musical requirements.

The London Musical Society celebrated St.Cecilia's Day (22nd November) every year by musical performances in honour of the patron saint of music, St. Cecilia. mden wrote his two odes for this occasion in 1687 and 1697. The second is our text. The odes were musically performed with orchestra and chorus at the annual concerts which had been given since 1683 to celebrate St.Cecilia's Day. The music for the song (1687) was composed by Giovanni Baptista Draghi, an Italian organist and music master at the court. Alexander's Feast, or The Power of Musique was given its music by Jeremiah Clarke, but that is lost. A second musical setting was composed by Handel in 1736, which is 'about fifteen times' longer than a plain reading of the song.

The Poem

The ode is a complex dramatic encomium of music. Dryden has combined the story of Timotheus moving Alexander's feelings by music - a stock example of the doctrine of the aesthetic 'effect' - with the other story of Alexander incited by Thais to fire Perseopolis

The ODE

The ode is a type of lyric, serious, dignified, and frequently in the form of an address.

Examples of the regular ode (so called because it uses the same stanza-pattern) are Wordsworth's Ode to Duty and Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. The irregular Odes have varied rhyme, rhythm and stanza-pattern. The examples are Dryden's Odes, Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality and Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. The English Ode in general disregards the Greek or Pindaric Ode and the Latin Horatian Ode.

Read here - https://poets.org/poem/alexanders-feast-or-power-music

Ignou explanation - pg22 - http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22185/1/Unit-24.pdf

Aids to a Critical Appreciation

There are seven sections or stanzas in the Ode. 'The first presents valour; the second traces the human or heroic to the divine, and transforms the heroic into the divine; the third presents drinking, pleasure and the festivity, the play of life, the lightness of revelry; the fourth presents the ridiculous folly of Vanity (The sentiment of merriment

Musical instruments like the lyre, the trumpet, the drum, the hautboys, the flambeau, the flute are described as pagan and pre-christian. The organ is specifically Christian or associated with the rise of Christianity. The expansion of music adding length to solemn sound and making it religious. 3. The varying rhymes and rhythm of the stanzas make it an irregular ode.

The ode seems to narrate the evolution from the pagan to the Christian in terms of an uncertain or undecided conflict.

The Ode presents Alexander and Darius analogically to contemporary William III and James II, but the analogy is unintended, The revolutionary settlement of 1688 was the potential analogy, but Dryden had by this time lost interest in current political affairs and concentrated on poetic creation

Block -5 Neoclassicla Poets - Dryden and Pope

Neo Classical poets Part-1 Neo Classical poets Part -2 Neo Classical poets Part -3 Life of Dryden Background to Mac Flecknoe Mac Flecknoe Part 1 Mac Flecknoe Part 2 Mac Flecknoe Part 3 Mac Flecknoe Part 4 Alexander's Feast Part 1 Alexander's Feast Part 2

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