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@article{194891,
        author = {Mitalee Gangal},
        title = {Pope’s The Dunciad: An Allegory of Intellectual Decay and Satirical Excellence},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {10},
        pages = {6772-6774},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=194891},
        abstract = {The Dunciad” is Alexander Pope’s most ambitious and compelling poem. It expresses its deep dismay concerning the feared loss of Britain’s literary, cultural, and ethical inheritance. The poem celebrates the goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay and tastelessness to the kingdom of Great Britain. Pope takes the idea of personified goddess of Dulness, being at war with reason, darkness at war with light, and extends it to a full Aeneid parody. Thus, this poem celebrates a war than a mere victory. The poem has a satirical undertone, though in its epic form, it parodies the rise of bad writers and shallow intellectuals. In the poem, Pope imagines a "Dunciad" or a kingdom of dullness, where the worst writers, critics, and thinkers are celebrated. Pope uses exaggerated and comedic language to make fun of the people he saw as contributing to a decline in literary and intellectual standards, especially in the world of publishing and criticism. By turning an epic form into a mockery, Pope is essentially saying that the world of letters has become so full of nonsense that it deserves to be treated as a mock-heroic adventure.},
        keywords = {satirical undertone, war with reason, kingdom of dullness, mock-heroic adventure},
        month = {March},
        }