Alexander Pope’s 1743 Dunciad in Four Books and its preceding iterations were a reaction to rapidly shifting eighteenth-century culture. With the rise of Grub Street hack writers and undeserving Poet Laureates like Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber, Pope saw the fall of British civilization. The mock-epic Dunciad portrays this degradation with the progress of the goddess Dulness through London and her eventual and inevitable return of Britain to darkness and chaos. Many of Pope’s contemporaries are depicted as acolytes of Dulness, with a complex footnote system explicating their inclusion on the basis of their works, political alignments, education, patronage, or even disagreements with Pope. These representations of eighteenth-century print culture are not only comedic on an individual level; rather, they participate in and reinforce Pope’s overarching satire. Within this context, the following study closely examines Pope’s satirical construction of the “dunce-head” with a particular focus on the physical aspects of the skulls of the dunces. The facial features of the dunces, whether dull, twisting, or asinine, are the most obvious visual indicators of Dulness. However, the satire is extended by Pope’s conception of the skull as a physical container, in which the brain fluids of the dunces are no better than lead or brass. The mud, owls, poets’ bays, and other materials perched on the dunces’ crowns also contribute to the parody. Finally, Pope’s establishment of the dunce-head as a passive object, with the few notable exceptions such as its propensity for noise-making, concludes the study. These crucial visual signifiers and their combination with Pope’s complex abstract conception of Dulness shifts the dunce-head from mere caricature and mocked object to a satirical symbol. The Dunciad, a brilliant lampoon of eighteenth century print culture, has an archetypal skull at the center of its satire: the dull, braying, filth-covered dunce-head.

Murderer, bastard, spy: Richard Savage was no stranger to scandal and controversy. And yet, for a man who lived such a varied life, little is known for certain about him. There are rumors, suggestions, and accusations, but little that can be said without debates and arguments. It certainly does not help that Savage is often marginalized in eighteenth-century scholarship as scholars seek to discover and analyze all they can about his more famous, and more upstanding, contemporaries. While Savage's relationship with Johnson is well known and discussed frequently, all that is known of his relationship with Pope is that he contributed information to Pope's Dunciad Variorum (1729) and that Pope later contributed large sums to Savage's support. Pope was the driving force behind Savage's retirement to Wales, possibly alluded to in Johnson's London (1738), as well as the chief financial contributor to this retirement plan. No serious effort has been made to connect these two important episodes in Savage's life, perhaps because no serious effort has been made to establish the extent of his involvement with the Dunciad. It may have been this connection with Pope that drew Johnson to Savage in the first place. The intent of this thesis is to clarify the nature of Savage's collaborations with Pope and the extent of his contributions to the Dunciad Variorum of 1729. The Dunciad seeks to make fun not only of Pope's critics, but of writers who write for bread, the "hack writers" of Grub Street. It was here that Pope would most likely turn to Savage for information; Savage was much better acquainted with those writers than was Pope. But Savage may have done more than simply supply Pope with gossip, and I will consider the possibility that he had a more active role in the publication of the Dunciad Variorum. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Pope's treatment of Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber in their roles as the king of dunces in the Dunciad. After an introductory chapter that treats the battles between Pope and Theobald and Pope and Cibber, the second chapter gives a short factual biography of Theobald emphasizing the events relating to his battle with Pope. The third chapter analyzes the caricature of Theobald in the Dunciad Variorum, showing its variations from fact. By comparing Theobald and Cibber, the fourth chapter investigates the extent and effectiveness of the changes made in the Dunciad of 1743 to accommodate the change from Theobald to Cibber as the king of dunces. This paper attempts to demonstrate that Theobald and Cibber were treated unfairly by Pope, whose decision to enthrone both was based on a desire for personal revenge.