The Eighteenth-Century Mock-Heroic Poem

This book is the first comprehensive study of the theory, the conventions and the history of the mock-heroic genre.

Ulrich Broich (Author), David Henry Wilson (Translated by)

9780521144902, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 August 2010

250 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

Mock-heroic poetry is one of the most characteristic genres of English neoclassicism in the eighteenth century. Derived from French models, the mock-heroic became something more than merely a parody of the serious epic: relieved of its gravity, it was nevertheless a legitimate and independent form of epic poetry. This book is the first comprehensive study of the theory, the conventions and the history of the mock-heroic genre. In the first part, Ulrich Broich shows how mock-heroic poetry combines the characteristics of various discourses - epic, comedy, parody, satire and occasional poetry. The 'polyphonic' genre which emerges from this analysis stands in ironic contrast to the neoclassical ideal of decorum in a harmonious unity of discourse and form. The second part traces the history of mock-heroic poetry: its foreign sources, its beginnings in England, the 'rivalry' with other forms of comic narrative, and its decline in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Foreword
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. The Conventions of the Mock-Heroic Poem: 1. The presentation of contemporary reality
2. The disguise and suspension of reality
3. Imitation and parody of the epic
4. The mock-heroic poem as satire
Part II. The History of the Mock-Heroic Poem: 5. Different types of mock-heroic poem and their pre-neoclassical models
6. Boileau's Le Lutrin and the first phase of the genre's development in England (c. 1681 – c. 1712)
7. Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1712–14)
8. The Rape of the Lock and the heroi-comical poem (second phase, c. 1714 – c. 1742)
9. Pope's Dunciad (1728–43)
10. The decline and fall of the mock-heroic poem (third phase, c. 1742 – c. 1800)
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index of authors and titles.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]