summary and analysis of the poem Mac Flecknoe by John Dryden

In this  essay we are going to see about the summary and critical analysis of the poem Mac Flecknoe.

 Mac Flecknoe :  Summary and Critical Analysis

                Mac Flecknoe (1682) is a devastating attack on Dryden’s  follow dramatist Shadwell.  Originally a friend, Shadwell had quarrelled with Dryden and attacked his play, ‘Aurangazeb’.  The poem is Dryden’s scathing retort.  Shadwell is ridiculed by being represented as the “Mac” or “Son” of Richard Flecknoe, a contemptible Irish minor poet and playwright whom Dryden addresses as the unchallenged monarch of “all the realms of nonsense”.  Shadwell is, therefore, the true heir in meaningless and inconsequence.  We must remember that Shadwell was actually a fairly successful and well thought of playwright.  The ignominy is undeserved.

Political Backround:  Contextualising Mac Flecknoe:

                No significant literary work of the Restoration exists independent of strong connections with the contemporary political scenario.  There is also a political scenario.  There is also a political undertone in this satire.  Shadwell is a Whig, member of a political party that opposed the king.  The pro-monarchy party was that of the Tories.  You can definitely make out on which side Dryden’s sympathies lay.  A feud existed between the Whigs and Tories regarding the succession of the Duke of York, the Catholic brother of King, Charles II, to the throne in 1680.  A look at the pictorial depiction of the Stuart Line and the House  of Hanover will help you understand the complex web.  While the Tories were supporters of the King and Duke of York, the Whigs were opposed to the succession of the Duke of York to the English throne.  It is believed that Charles II sought the help of Dryden in this connection, and shortly afterwards, Absalom and Achitophel, a political satire was written.

                The identity of Shadwell as a Whig is also ridiculed by Dryden who is a Tory, in Mac Flecknoe.  Hence there is political satire mixed with personal satire.  The factors that have made Mac Flecknoe an abiding literary text despite it highly topical nature.

Summary with critical commentary:

                Dryden imagines a situation where the aged King Flecknoe, monarch of “all the realms of nonsense” decides to ensure succession to his throne.  Among his numerous progeny, he selects Shadwell as most worthy.  This is because Shadwell resembles him the closest and “never deviates in to sense”.   The extent of his inanity is presented in several ways through images of light and darkness and comparison of his actual corpulence and inertia with huge Oak trees.  Notice carefully and you find a ring of Chaucer’s style of humour and satire in Dryden too.  We  understand that the qualities Flecknoe looks  for in Shadwell are negative qualities in a human being, nonetheless these vary aspects are glorified.  You will definitely find parallels here with Chaucer’s “extolling” of the Wife of Bath and other characters whose flaws/vices are censured not by criticism buy by glorification!

                Flecknoe sees himself as a mere forerunner preparing the way for the grand arrival Shadwell from the north (Norwich).  Popular playwrights Heywood and Shirley were only replicas of the prototype Shadwell. On a glorious ceremonial occasion Shadwell, leading a host of minor musicians, had sung before the royal barge of the English King during a Thames river pageant.  Flecknoe considers this a greater achievement that his own stint at the court of King John of Portugal.   Elaborate mockingly on the performance at Shadwell’s desperate efforts to produce a semblance of rhythm and harmony by tapping his feet, waving hands while fingering a screeching lute.  Aided by a crowd of similarly ungifted musicians, the final result is so unmusical and dull, that overcome with emotion, the father concludes that Shadwell alone is fit for the throne.

                On the fringes of the walled city of London also known as Augusta where once stood a watchtower is now the haunt of prostitutes and brothel houses.   Here existed a school for training of young actors and actresses.  Dryden sneers at the rant, bombastic language and exaggerated mannerisms the players used to create an effect.  This was the cradle of substandard actors, where great dramatists like Fletcher and Johnson  could never be seen.  Interestingly, Flecknoe deemed this as the most suitable platform or throne for Shadwell.  It seems Dekker  had foretold of such an event.

                The description of the coronation in all its pomp and splendour.  The tone is mocking of course but every step is faithfully presented.  Crowds came from remote areas, from Waiting Street and Bunhill Fields.  The Guard of Honour was presented by petty officers (Yeomen), unpaid stationers, and captained by Herring man.  Shadwell’s real-life publisher.  The red carpet was a patchwork cobbled from the works of Heywood and Shirley mutilated by Shadwell to construct his own dramas.   Flecknoe appears in procession carried aloft on the chariot of his own dullness and Shadwell-aka Ascarius, the future hope of London, is seated on his right.  Shadwell takes the oath of office-to uphold dullness and wage eternal war with good sense.  Flecknoe anoints him.  Instead of the customary orb and sceptre that mark royal power, a tankard of beer and Love’s kingdom is placed in his hands and he is crowned with a wreath of poppies.  At this climatic moment, twelve owls fly past him, signifying the fulfilment of a prophecy.  The crowds cheer at these signs of future empire.

                In an outburst of prophetic frenzy, Flecknoe blesses his dutiful son:  that he may hold sway in space and time from Ireland to Barbados and even beyond; that his works will better his father’s in quantity and quality of meaninglessness.  In the prologue to his play Virtuoso, Shadwell had regretted the many defects in composition due to lack of time. 

                May Shadwell continue to labour long and hard for such  insane results.  George Etherege created foolish characters and heroes which delighted  audiences and reflected his cleverness.  May the characters he creates be clones (dummies) of Shadwell, serving to expose his innate dullness.  Sir Charles Sedley had written the Prologue to Epsom Wells.  Dryden hints perhaps he had helped Shadwell in the composition itself. Flecknoe advises Shadwell to rely on his innate lack of wit when creating  the florid, bombastic speeches of Sir Formal Ca character in Shadwell’s play and not imitate anyone else as these dialogues come very naturally and effortlessly to him.

                Flecknoe continues with another reference to Shadwell’s corpulence.  Ben Jonson too had a large paunch.  He warns Shadwell not to be swayed by friends who hail him as another Jonson, for similarity lies only in size and not in stature/genius.  He is a true son of his father in poor literary judgement, poor imitations of superior writers and in plagiary.  These thefts however merely demonstrate the substantial worthiness of Etherege and Fletcher while scum-like Shadwell’s works float on the surface. 

                The list of Shadwell’s assets continues.  Whatever type of character he invents has a natural tilt towards dullness.  His huge girth produces little sense.  His poetry is weak and fails to move, his tragic plays are laughable and comedies boring and satires have no barb.  Since fame will not come in writing poetry or plays, Flecknoe suggests Shadwell write lightweight trick verses (ACROSTICS) and sing them to himself.

                At this point, Bruce and Longville (Characters in Shadwell’s play) pull Flecknow down a trap door and his cloak/mantle borne aloft by the wind alights on his son as a two fold blessing of longwinded emptiness. 

                Mac Flecknoe is intended to mock on or satirize Shadwell.  All satire degrades a person or a whole body by evoking scorn contempt and laughter.  A satire can attack viciously or in a gentle manner using abuse or wit.  Frequently the author uses one of two models.  They either employ elevated address or high-flown comparison to describe a petty subject or deflate pomposity, self-importance and arrogance by belittling them.  Dryden uses the first method in Mac Flecknoe treating the idea like an epic/heroic poem in both form and style, only to ridicule Shadwell as trivial or unimportant,   like the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar, the minor poet Flecknoe too is the ruler of the great realm of Nonsense.  Epic poetry concerns great actions or events involving legendary heroes and is usually of national importance.  Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid or our own Ramayana and Mahabharata are such poems.  The characters are presented as larger than life often by adopting formulas and fixed epithets, tracing a global lineage, the supernatural and the marvellous is associated with them, and along with an elevated tone similies, long comparisons or descriptions, invocations are standard devices. 

                Dryden uses the epic machinery with remarkable success.  The introduction (Exordium) establishes the theme of “succession”,  a matter of profound  relevance to the contemporary British as well as Flecknoe.    Dryden jeers at Shadwell’s impressive physical size as flatulence and inertia of “thoughtless” that is lacking thought solemnly like “oats”.  While riff-raff congregate of Shadwell’s coronation, through soldiers or fallen angels numerous as fallen autumn leaves stand behind Aeneas and Lucifer.  Supernatural happenings are often foretold where heroes are concerned.  In this case, twelve owls fly past Shadwell, a parody of the twelve vultures saluting Romulus. 

                Many such parallels can be found on a close reading of the text.  Satire thrives on allusions especially if they are contemporary and local.  These references heighten mockery by contrasts and similarities.  Public memory will recall the pageantry on land and river associated with the Restoration and chortle over the parallels Dryden draws in his poem.  In political war, Shadwell, a Whig is exposed  as dedicating his works to the Duke of Newcastle and to his son The Earl of Ogle, to seek patronage.  References to plays running in London theatres, recently published poems, dramatis personae their behaviour , foibles and activities are liberally sprinkled through the lines adding to the bite of the lampoon.  The given notes support this claim.

                Dryden’s skill in the heroic couplet is evident in this poem.  It rises to a grand style as required by an epic but the balanced epithets and the rhythms of common speech permit the deadly scorn to blaze though.  Though no real epic simile is to be found, we can spot images plenty.  Shadwell is presented in terms of less and more “beams” of light to “flogs” and “night”, “floats” and “sinks”, the fishes clustering for the “breakfast toast” and finally the bathos of the coronation scene.  Of his satires, Dryden says “It is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough.  I  avoided the mention of great crimes, representing blink sides and little extravagances”.  Sadly Mac Flecknoe does lapse occasionally in to coarsenesss and personal spite. 

                The position of Dryden in English literature is unquestioned.  He made a notable contribution in prose, poetry and drama as a literary critic and as a satirist.  In place of slipshod and loose blank  verse, he substituted the discipline of the heroic couplet as the metre for all poetry for a whole century and turned satire into a poetic form.