Satire in The Dunciad Book IV
The Dunciad is a mock-heroic narrative poem. First of all, the poem is a narrative one because the speaker uses the poem to tell a story. Generally, narrative poems are long and complex, containing many characters. The poem is also a mock-heroic poem because it is a satire. It is called "heroic" because it takes the way the hero was presented in many heroic poems and exaggerates certain features to the point where the hero is no longer the hero but rather a fool. Book IV was entirely new to the Dunciad B and had been published first as a stand-alone concluding poem. Pope himself referred to the four-book version "the Greater Dunciad ", in keeping with the Greater Iliad . It is also "greater" in that its subject is larger. Book IV can function as a separate piece or as the conclusion of the Dunciad : in many ways its structure and tone are substantially different from the first three books, and it is much more allegorical . ...