and

are John Dryden’s two greatest satires; whereas the latter combines comedy with serious political discussion,

is comic throughout. Yet the best comedy can be serious business, as is the case with this poem. Sometimes incorrectly trivialized as nothing more than a narrow lampoon against the playwright Thomas Shadwell,

is much more than this as Dryden actually makes of his rival dramatist a literary portent and excoriates both him and his literary productions as exhibits of a bad taste that threatens cultural standards.

In a later reference to the poem, Dryden called it a “Varronian” satire (after the Roman satirist Marcus Terentius Varro, 116-27 BCE); yet perhaps more important than classical precedent is the

1963 words

Citation: Donnelly, Jerome. "Mac Flecknoe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3801, accessed 23 November 2024.]