The Three Book Dunciad has an extensive inversion of Virgil's Aeneid, but it also structures itself heavily around a Christological theme. To some degree, this imagery of unholy consecration had been present in Dryden's MacFlecknoe, but Pope's King of Dunces is much more menacing than Thomas Shadwell could ever have been in Dryden's poem. It is not a case of an unworthy man getting praised that spurs the poem, but rather a force of degradation and decadence that motivates it. Pope is not targeting one man, but rather a social decline that he feels is all but irrevocable. Nevertheless, the poem is still a satire and not a lamentation. The top of society (the kings) may be dulled by spectacle and freak shows, but Dulness is only one force. She is at war with the men of wit, and she can be opposed. In the Four Book Dunciad (or Dunciad B), any hope of redemption or reversal is gone, and the poem is even more nihilistic.

Fans of literary lampoonery will delight in the no-holds-barred, scorched-earth satire that British poet Alexander Pope unleashes in his witty masterpiece, The Dunciad. Disgusted by the teeming waves of self-proclaimed "writers" who emerged in search of a quick buck when the growing availability of cheaply printed books made sentimental stories popular with the public, Pope took it upon himself to put these hacks in their place in an epic poem lambasting their dullness and lack of refinement.

Alexander Pope was the greatest poet of his age and the dominant influence on eighteenth-century British poetry. His large oeuvre, written over a thirty-year period, encompasses satires, odes and political verse and reflects the sexual, moral and cultural issues of the world around him, often in brilliant lines and phrases which have become part of our language today. This is the first overview to analyse the full range of Pope's work and to set it in its historical and cultural context. Specially commissioned essays by leading scholars explore all of Pope's major works, including the sexual politics of The Rape of the Lock, the philosophical enquiries of An Essay on Man and the Moral Essays, and the mock-heroic of The Dunciad in its various forms. This volume will be indispensable not only for students and scholars of Pope's work, but also for all those interested in the Augustan age.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was the greatest English poet of his age, whose acerbic insights into human nature have entered the language, and whose verse still astonishes with its energy and inventiveness centuries after his death. This new selection of Pope's work follows the path of his poetic genius over his lifetime. It contains early poems including the masterly mock-epic 'The Rape of the Lock', which satirizes a notorious society scandal through glorious heroic couplets, the brilliantly aphoristic 'An Essay on Criticism' and excerpts from his translation of the Iliad. Later poems represented include Pope's ironic adaptations of Horace's Epistles, Satires and Odes, and the remarkable 'Dunciad', a stinging attack on his literary rivals and the mediocrity of Grub Street hacks. Here too are selected prose works and letters from Pope to his contemporaries such as John Gay and Jonathan Swift.

How was Alexander Pope's personal experience of women transformed into poetry? How characteristic of his age was Pope's attitude toward women? What was the influence of individual women such as his mother, Patty Blount and Lady Mary Montagu on his life and work? Valerie Rumbold's is the first full-length study to address these issues. Referring to previously unexploited manuscripts, she focuses both on Pope's own life and art, and on early eighteenth-century assumptions about women and gender. She offers readings of some of the well-known poems in which women feature prominently, and follows Pope's response throughout his writings in general. The poet's own alienation from the dominant culture (through religion, politics and physical handicap), and his troubled fascination with certain kinds of women, make this subject complex and compelling, with wide implications. Dr. Rumbold provides new insight, and shows how women with whom Pope dealt can themselves be seen as individuals with presence and dignity.