A common theme one can notice in the poetry written during the restoration period is satire. While in today’s world, one may scrunch up their nose in distaste when satire is used, in the mid 17th century, it was a landmark poetic device, mostly popularized by a poet named John Dryden, who was fairly well known due to his striking humour, his sharp wit, and his ability to ridicule a person so much that one can simply wonder how he achieved such a talent.
One such public ridiculing is evident in his famous literary work, Mac Flecknoe, quite literally translating to ‘Son of Flecknoe’. I had the pleasure of studying the poem in detail as it is part of my curriculum, and the witty castigation done by Dryden of many of his contemporary poets â and former friends â had me clutching my stomach,laughing so hard that tears sprang into my eyes.
Before I begin dissecting the poem and explaining why it is so hilarious in its capacity, let’s understand the historical and political background surrounding the period during which this poem was written.
The “Restoration Period” refers to the time period between 1660 to 1688 in England, when King Charles II got crowned and restored the monarchy after the Puritan Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. alongside the restoration of the system of monarchy, the period also saw a revival of theatre, art, as well as literature, which became more political, public, and satirical. It reflected the conflicts and contradictions of the age, and was used as a way to bring about social change.
The liberation of expression of ideas also brought about different political ideologies during this period. The most highlighted ideologies of this time were the Torys and the Whigs, with the Tory believes in the divine right of kings and that the monarch should have sole authority over the kingdom; and the Whigs believing that the major authority should be given to the parliament instead of the king.
Dryden, an avid follower of the Toryan belief, was the first poet laureate of England and therefore had a lot of influence on his contemporary poets. He openly opposed the Whiggish beliefs, and even criticized his former friends who belonged to the Whig ideology, including James Shirley, Thomas Heywood, and most importantly, Thomas Shadwell, among others within the poem ‘Mac Flecknoe’.
The poem is written in a mock-heroic format, which is ironic because it takes the grand style of age-old classical epics and applies it to a mockery, making a contrast between the prestige of the epics’ dignity and his contemporary poets’ ‘dullness’. This technique of writing mock-heroic poetries was a respected form of high satire during the time period of Renaissance and Classical Literature, and therefore, it transformed a personal literary quarrel into a grand comic spectacle. It allowed Dryden to ridicule and criticise Shadwell with exaggerated dignity and ironic praise.
Dryden’s literary genius and utter hilarity lies in the way he set up the poem to be the scene of an accession to the throne of a kingdom of stupidity. Its king, Richard Flecknoe, was a relatively obscure contemporary poet of Dryden and Shadwell, famously known for being a mediocre and dull writer since his literary pieces severely lacked depth and originality. Dryden immortalized his complete lack of original thought and intellectuality in Mac Flecknoe, to the point where Richard Flecknoe is now only remembered entirely because of this poem.
In the poem, Flecknoe contemplates who to name king out of his sons â Shirley, Heywood, Shadwell, among others: a symbolic family of dull and stupid poets â but realises that none of his âsonsâ is more suitable to be his successor other than Shadwell. Dryden portrays Shadwell as the ‘chosen one’ of nonsense, and praises him with phrases that are actually meant to insult him instead.
To give a few examples from Flecknoe’s monologue, where Dryden praises Shadwell with words that insult him instead:
“…Shâ alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullness from his tender years.
Shâ alone, of all my Sons, is he
Who stands confirmâd in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shâ never deviates into sense.
Some Beams of Wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval; clear, bright
But Shââs genuine night admits no ray,
His rising Fogs prevail upon the Day:
Besides, his goodly Fabric fills the eye, fat body
And seems designâd for thoughtless Majesty.”
As a student of the University of Lucknow, I feel that we need to bring such forms of satire back. The satire that is used to bring about a reform in the irrational system of working that is used in the world around us. Institutions like Lucknow University, which once held prestige and are now on the verge of intellectual collapse, truly need to be thoroughly criticized through such indirect forms of reproval, which do not directly attack the institution and its values, but still highlight where reform and change is needed.
In addition to Lucknow University, the contemporary political scene of our country â or the entire world, for that matter â in recent times, has also more or less gone to the dogs. Reformative satire, such as the kind used in Mac Flecknoe, remains relevant in its capacity to highlight and expose an institution’s incompetence, hypocrisy, and abuse of power, even if the institution is the government of a country itself.
Whether it be the recent case of the Chief Minister of Bihar’s disrespect to a female Muslim doctor; the release of the Epstein Files by the U.S. Government which turned out to be all redacted; or the Government of India remaining silent even after the recent outrage of Bangladeshi citizens against India and its citizens after the death of a famous political activist. In such cases, the use of satire can act as a counterbalance to the propaganda that is spread by the media houses in support of such nonsensical actions taken by the governments in question.
In the earlier political scene, many media outlets like The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Shankarâs Weekly, Marmik and more published satirical cartoons criticising the government of India in an indirect way, using political satire as a weapon to expose the weaknesses and the faulty workings of the Government of India. However, you wouldn’t find such satirical instruments in today’s time. The loss of such blatant call-outs from the media houses, and their hesitancy in highlighting and making people aware of the true faults of our government resulted in the state of unawareness and blind faith that people have in the contemporary political parties.
However, such types of satire still exist today. If not in the traditinal media outlets, then in the influencers and non-traditional news and media outlets, which make people aware of these innate flaws in the management of their own country. But the discomfort political satire provokes in people today mirrors that of the reactions it produced in the seventeenth century. It may be dismissed today as offensive or cynical, but it stood as a necessary corrective tool back then and it still stands as one now.
The basic aim of reformative satire is to shame society into self awareness. And thus, Dryden’s method in doing so remains strikingly relevant in the sense that satire, when done right, continues to remind both the leaders and the citizens that power without competence, and authority without merit, are inherently ridiculous.