Summary of Mac Flecknoe

About the poem

MacFleknoe is a mock-heroic poem.

“Mock-heroic or mock-epic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic qualities to such a point that they become absurd.”(Wikipedia)

Background of the poem

Dryden's intention in writing "Mac Flecknoe" was to expose Shadwell as an inferior writer. Dryden parodies Shadwell cruelly, in spite of the fact that he maintains a strategic distance from mockery.  Rather, Dryden uses the outstanding ability of his wit, extremely sharp, to expose Shadwell's writing as uninteresting and boring. Early in the poem, Dryden uses hyperbole or overstatement to pressure the duskiness of Shadwell's creative ability and imagination.

Points to remember

Dryden and Shadwell

John Dryden wrote "Mac Flecknoe" to satirize another English writer, Thomas Shadwell. Dryden and Shadwell had once treated each other amicably but became enemies because of their differing views on the following:

Politics - Dryden was a Tory; Shadwell was a Whig.

Religion - Shadwell offended Dryden when he ridiculed Catholic and Anglican clerics in his play The Lancashire-Witches, and Teague o Divelly the Irish-Priest (1682). Dryden was thinking about turning into a Catholic at the time (1686).

Different Opinion - Dryden and Shadwell varied strongly on who was the better essayist: Shakespeare or Ben Jonson. Dryden took the piece of Shakespeare; Shadwell adored Jonson.

Richard Flecknoe

Richard Flecknoe (1600-1678) was an English dramatist and poet whose writing was parodied by Dryden. In "Mac Flecknoe," Dryden depicts him as the King of Nonsense and Shadwell as the son of the King of Nonsense. Shadwell assumes the crown as Mac Flecknoe. (Mac means son of.)

Summary of Mac Flecknoe

L 1-29

In the poem, the poet (Dryden) uses the third-person perspective and Thomas Shadwell is introduced as “A Satire on the True-blue Protestant T.S.”

 Dryden introduces Flecknoe, who is compared to the Roman Emperor Augustus, was called to the throne when he was young. He rules the Kingdom of Nonsense peacefully at this time. But he is growing old enough and he wants to choose his next king of his state.

Flecknoe thinks about which of his sons is perfect for the throne. It will be the man who looks like him most. In this respect, Shadwell who is mature in dullness from his childhood, is a perfect successor. He is “confirm’d in full stupidity” (line 18).  While some of his have some sense, he never has any sense whatsoever Shadwell’s “genuine night admits no ray” (line 23).

L 30-64

Flecknoe believes Shadwell “the last great prophet of tautology” (line 30), parallel to Heywood and Shirley before him. Truly, Flecknoe was a prestigious dull, however, he was only a harbinger, a precursor, to set up the route for a definitive dullard, his son. Infamous authors who preceded Shadwell periodically showed the dimmest shine of wit but Shadwell never composed a line that seemed well and good.

When Mac Flecknoe's majestic barge advances on the River Thames for the first time, people gather to yell his name and “the little fishes throng" (line 49) around his vessel. His elderly father “wept for joy / In silent raptures of the hopeful boy" (L 60-61). Nobody can disagree against Shadwell as the perfect King of Nonsense, for the greater part of his works—specifically his plays—specify “that for anointed dullness he was made" (line 63).

L 65-94

Shadwell takes the position of royalty in a district of Augusta (London) where “brothel-houses rise" (line 7). Close-by is a nursery for kids who will be trained as the performer. The plays of Fletcher and Jonson (John Fletcher and Ben Jonson) are never staged in this place, however, the dull and inferior plays of Shadwell were staged here.  

L 95-134

Empress Fame publishes the account of Shadwell’s name. Citizens hearing of him meets together. There are no Persian carpets lining the road, only “scatter’d limbs of mangled poets” (line 99). Writers like Heywood, Shirley, and Ogleby lay in the road, but yet it is, for the most part, Shadwell that stops up it.

Finally, the prince shows up in all his magnificence, sitting on a throne. Flecknoe compares Shadwell to Ascanius, son of Aeneas, who sat at his father’s right hand and inherited the kingdom. Shadwell’s eyebrows are like thick fogs, and dullness twirls about his appearance.

Shadwell swears he will keep up dullness until his death. He will never show wit and sign a true sense.

The king places a mug of ale in his son’s hand. While holding a mug of ale in his left hand, Shadwell holds the composition of his play Love's Kingdom in his right, announcing it “his sceptre and his rule of sway" (line 123). At that moment from his left hand fly twelve owls, an occurrence that reminds the observers of Romulus, legendary co-founder of ancient Rome. Twelve vultures proclaimed his rule.

The admiring crowd yells for all happening.

L 135-164

Flecknoe shakes his dewy forehead and scatters the drops on his son. He stands in a prophetic state of mind and announces that Heaven should bless his son and he shall rule from Ireland to Barbados; there will be no end to his conclusion to his territory and it will be more prominent than his father's.

Flecknoe stops to let the people cry “Amen!” He proclaims that his son still advances in impudence and stupid.. Others can learn achievement, but from Flecknoe, Shadwell has learned “pangs without birth, and fruitless industry” (line 148).

L 165-217

Flecknoe expresses the expectation that his son “advance in new impudence, new ignorance" (line 146) and compose virtuosic plays showing no confirmation of knowledge. Also, he says, let other essayists copy his son. The main distinction amongst Shadwell and them, he says, will be their names. Flecknoe advises his son to avoid stressing to choose “false flowers of rhetoric" (line 165). Rather, he need only confide his common senses, and dullness will pour forward.  For motivation, Shadwell should copy his father rather than writers of wit, like Ben Jonson. 

While still speaking Flecknoe suddenly vanishes through a trap door. A wind carries his majestic robe upward, and it falls upon the shoulders of the new King of Nonsense—Shadwell, Mac Flecknoe.