CHARACTERITICS OF MOCK-EPIC POETRY

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CHARACTERITICS OF MOCK-EPIC POETRY:

As the name indicates, the Mock-Epic is a literary form that imitates the Classical Epic by bringing the formulas characteristics of the epic - the invocation of a deity, a formal statement of theme, the division of the work into books and cantos, grandiose speeches, battles, supernatural machinery, and so on - to bear upon a trivial image. 

Main features of Mock-Epic include,

  • A sarcastic tone
  • The heightened or elevated style and form of serious epic poem. 
  • Ridiculing a trivial or inconsequential subject. 
  • The use of invocation, battles, and epic similies. 
  • The use of "dues ex machina" - Ex machina is an ancient  theatrical tradition in which a plotted character is inserted into a play to miraculously save the hero. This conversion was also used to solve a complicated narrative. 

Examples of Mock-Epic includes "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope as well as is poem "The Dunciad" and "Mack Flecknoe" by John Dryden. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK - ALEXANDER POPE

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