Dryden and Swift: literary analysis and comparison

Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe"

Isolate and catalog some of the bawdier insults from the first 63 lines.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, / but Sh -- never deviates into sense" (19-20)

Even I, a dunce of more renown than they, / Was sent before but to prepare thy way" (31-2)

All arguments, but most his Plays, perswade, / That for anointed dullness he was made" (62-3)

How does the poetic form (rhyming iambic pentameter couplets -- more often known as "heroic couplets") contribute to the tone and meaning of the poem? Is there an irony here in using "heroic" couplets? Are the occasional triplets (marked in the text) seemingly functional, or perhaps merely accidental? The heroic couplets are hugely ironic given the subject matter of the poem. They emphasize the anti-heroicism that Dryden is satirizing as heroic, as his created speaker of Fleckno takes great pride and joy in his and Shadwell's idiocy. The triplets all seem to signal the end of a section; even when the poem does not have a stanza break immediately following, it signals the end of one major thought and the transition into the next. Adding the triplet has a way of closing off the rhyme when the eye and ear have become so used to pairs.

3) Look closely at the rhymes. Which two or three pairings strike you as particularly witty? Why?

Near these a Nursery erects its head, / Where Queens are form'd, and future Hero's bred" (74-5)

The obvious male sexual imagery in the first line is contrasted to the femininity of the Nursery and the idea of birth, with "head" and "bred" being the linchpins of this juxtaposition.

But so transfus'd as Oyl on Waters flow, / His always floats above, thine sinks below" (185-6).

The neatness of this rhyme and the meter if these two lines makes the insult especially biting, almost as though oil and water had been created specifically to illustrate the difference in the two authors beings compared.

4) What does Dryden leave us with in the concluding stanza (lines 211-217)? What is the final image or impression of this lengthy poem? The final image is Fleckno descending into a trap that has been constructed for him, still going on about his and Shadwell's greatness. He also loses his robe in the process; this increases his pathetic quality and allows for a mantle to be passed on to someone with twice the art.

Swift's Gulliver's Travels

5) Based on what you've read, is this really a work for children? What is going on here that might fly right over the heads of most young children? This book satirizes almost every institution of Swift's day, from the government to the Church. The fact the Lilliputians and Blefuscuans are fighting over which end of the egg to eat first is funy to children, but has deeper and somewhat sadder implications for adults.

6) Describe the narrator. What kind of character is he? What observational details does he choose to focus on? What, if anything, do these observations tell us about his own preoccupations or obsessions? Te things Gulliver notices seem to shift with each new country and his changing attitude. In Lilliput, he focuses on the organization of their government and cities, just as they do. In Laputa, even when describing the physical dimensions of the island, he ranges into incredibly detailed scientific observations. Gulliver is gullible -- easily molded by his environment.

7) What do you notice about the sentence structures and paragraphing? Is there a pattern to Swift's writing? Swift's paragraphs of description tend to be long and often contain complex sentences, while those devoted to ideas and action are sorter. Throughout the entire book, the reader is kept constantly aware of his own presence (by Swift's repeated mention of "the reader") and the speaker, who often uses "I," "me," and occasionally "we" -- a self-centered narrator if ever there was one.