Alexander Pope

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Discuss Augustan satire as it relates to John Dryden and Alexander Pope.

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The satire of the Augustan Age of the eighteenth century ridicules everything from politics to religion and from literature to social corruption. Alexander Pope with The Dunciad and his mock epic The Rape of the Lock and John Dryden with Absalom and Achitophel and Mac Flecknoe are prime examples of satirists and satirical works of the era.

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The Augustan Age spans the first half of the eighteenth century, and among other things, it was characterized by its scathing satire. Satire is a literary device that criticizes, ridicules, and exposes stupidity and corruption in people, events, organizations, governments, and just about anything else. Satirists use humor, exaggeration, and irony to serve their purpose.

Satire was especially prevalent in the Augustan Age due to the era's political conflicts (Whigs versus Tories, for instance), religious conflicts (Catholics versus Protestants), literary conflicts, and social corruption. No one was safe from the satirists' mighty pens, and many satirists were extremely creative and literary in their ridicule, too.

Alexander Pope and John Dryden stand at the forefront of Augustan satire. Pope's mock epic The Rape of the Lock , for instance, hilariously critiques the silliness and shallowness of upper-class society and its pursuits. The poet includes everything from an epic battle at...

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a card table to the horrors of the cutting of a woman's lock of hair to the nearly religious ritual of a lady's beauty routine. Pope also produced satire at its finest inThe Dunciad, in which he ridicules the declining quality of literary and artistic activities, claiming that they have been handed over to a confederacy of dunces who are more interested in money than in literature and art.

John Dryden, too, spares no one when he attacks with his pen. He is especially brutal in his political satire, as in the long poem Absalom and Achitophel, which uses a Biblical background to critique the political situation of Dryden's day. The poet also reaches the heights of satire in Mac Flecknoe, another long poem, which attacks Dryden's fellow poet Thomas Shadwell.

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What is Augustan satire, and how did Dryden and Pope contribute to it?

The Augustan era in English poetry was named after—and, to some extent, modeled on—the Augustan era in Rome, when Horace was the most famous satirist. Horatian satire is comparatively mild and high-minded, ostensibly aimed at raising the moral tone of society by pointing out its flaws. The Augustan satire of the eighteenth century in Britain was much more scurrilous and wounding towards its subjects, and this was largely due to the influence of Alexander Pope. Pope suggested the term "Augustan" to later literary historians by addressing his Epistle to Augustus to King George II. His own verse did not greatly resemble Horace's and was more influenced by the satire of Juvenal, who lived a hundred years after the age of Augustus.

Pope's main attributes as a poet were his metrical regularity and technical skill, the vicious personal attacks he made on his targets, and his celebration of reason and order rather than emotion and sensibility. All of these qualities could be said to have their roots in the poetry of John Dryden, whose work Pope greatly admired. Dryden died in 1700, meaning that his satires were written before the period generally identified as the era of Augustan satire (approximately 1700–1750s or 1760s). However, his verse satires in rhyming couplets clearly show the most important attributes of Augustan satire. If not an Augustan poet himself, Dryden was their most important precursor.

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