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How are the quoted lines from Alexander Pope's The Dunciad a parody of John Milton's account of Creation in Paradise Lost?
Here she [Dulness] beholds the Chaos dark and deep,
Where nameless Somethings in their causes sleep,
Till genial Jacob, or a warm Third day,
Call forth each mass, a Poem, or a Play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How newborn nonsense first is taught to cry,
Maggots half formed in rhyme exactly meet,
And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.
Quick answer:
Pope's lines parody Milton's Paradise Lost by depicting Dulness's chaotic creation of inept writers and literature. While Milton describes God's creation of order and beauty from chaos, Pope mockingly contrasts this by showing Dulness producing "nonsense" and "maggots" from a dark void, mimicking the biblical creation narrative. This satire criticizes the decline of literature by associating it with the goddess Dulness, highlighting the degradation of artistic standards.
Pope describes the creation account of somewhat rudimentary, vile, and base literary works by the goddess "Dulness" to stupefy England. In this passage, it is a clear parallel to Milton's creation account in Paradise Lost, which is directly derived from the biblical book of Genesis.
The Genesis account says the "Earth was without form and void," which is essentially a dark and chaotic state such as is described being held by Dulness. Additionally, the Genesis account has each act of creation happening on a separate day, which parallels Pope's description of a "Warm Third Day" on which these maggot-like creatures arose.
As Milton's work follows the biblical narrative, it discusses the creation of animals and plants from the void Earth and is parodied here, where Dulness creates wicked rhymes and idiotic poems and plays from the chaos. The narrative here is clearly a parody , intended to mock Milton's...
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"epic poem" idea when writingParadise Lost.
In The Dunciad, Pope savagely satirizes the hack writers and critics of his day, who were associated with the London publishing center Grub Street. He believed they were degrading and corrupting literature, selling themselves to write anything that would pay. His long poem attacks these writers by satirically praising a goddess called Dulness who reigns over their bad taste, decadence, and stupidity.
In the passage quoted above, Dulness is shown creating bad writers from the void or chaos. Pope characterizes such writers as "nameless Somethings"—the vague word "Somethings" mocks the sloppy imprecision of these hack writers. Their creative writings—poems and plays—is called "nonsense" and their rhyme is likened to "maggots."
We can see how Pope borrows from and parodies Book VII of Paradise Lost, in which the angel Raphael explains to Adam how God created the universe, and more specifically humans. Raphael envisions telling of this creation as a way to "magnifie [God's] his works." Unlike the repulsive creations of Dulness, God's creation is glorious. Having expelled Satan and his minions from heaven, God decided
Good out of evil to create, in stead
Of Spirits malign a better Race to bring
... and thence diffuse [190]
His good to Worlds and Ages infinite.
The good of God's creation is parodied in the dull spawn of Dulness.