I am complete: I have written a scholarly essay about poop.

The Consummate Comeuppance (an essay about poop)

Thomas Shadwell was a prolific and prominent playwright of the 17th century who was admired and respected by his contemporaries. He wrote many well-received plays, such as Epsom Wells and The Squire of Alsatia, and was appointed poet laureate in 1689. However, his successes were eclipsed by an unfortunate encounter with a rival poet: John Dryden. Irked by Shadwell’s pretentious claim of being the successor of Ben Jonson, Dryden composed a biting satirical poem, the mock epic Mac Flecknoe, to ridicule his rival’s delusions of grandeur. In the poem, a mixture of lofty language, vulgarity and extremely crude imagery suggests the mediocrity of Shadwell’s artistic production as well as the absurdity of his swelled ego. In the end, Dryden proved the better poet, as his work outshone all of Shadwell’s attempts to strike back and redeem himself. Because he made use of complex poetic devices to manipulate readers’ emotions and steer them to perceive Shadwell, at times, as nothing more than a piece of human excrement, Dryden demonstrated an impressive ability to mount a scathing, underhanded attack while maintaining artistic integrity. Dryden’s genius becomes evident after a study of the complex treatment of the vulgar images presented in lines 100 to 107.

Starting at line 94, the poem’s speaker describes the preparation for the ascension of the son of Flecknoe to the throne. The ceremony is less than awe-inspiring. Instead of “Persian carpets,” the path to the royal seat is littered with the works of little-known, unimportant authors such as Heywood, Shirley and Ogilby (line 102). In line 101, the pages penned by these writers are dubbed “relics of the bum” in a reference to the common practice of using the pages of unsold books as toilet paper. This is a significant detail, as these “relics of the bum” were likely placed along the path to prepare for the “mess” that the “heir to the throne of dullness” would surely leave in his wake. This constitutes an oblique yet significant connection between Shadwell and human waste that will only be made stronger in the following six lines with the presentation of two more similar images.

Throughout the poem, Shadwell’s name is never explicitly mentioned. He is normally referred to as the son of Flecknoe or identified using the placeholder “Sh_____.” The use of “Sh_____” is highly suggestive, and Dryden evidently hoped readers would imaginatively fill in the blanks with the desired expletive. However, in most cases, in order to maintain flow and to concede to the demands of the metric scheme, readers will automatically read the placeholder as “Shadwell.” In line 103, Dryden creates an environment perfectly suited to “Shadwell’s” crude alternative. The phrase “loads of Shadwell,” while metrically correct, seems awkward. Using the words “loads of” to quantify an individual is unusual. However, to quantify excrement in this manner is perfectly normal (at least to some). Thus, Dryden puts his readers on rails: he encourages them to substitute the mighty, majestic son of Flecknoe with a mass of repulsive matter. He playfully takes a step back and lets a part of the poem complete itself. This tactic constitutes an ingenious way of attacking a target in a vicious way without overtly making any objectionable statements.

The substitution in line 103 becomes even more significant because of its relation to the poem’s technical characteristics. Mac Flecknoe is composed of a series of Heroic couplets (with a few exceptions, such as the tercet found between lines 136 and 138) written in iambic pentameter. Each line consists of five feet, each featuring an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In line 103, the partially omitted word requires two syllables if it is going to be perfectly integrated into the verse. For this reason, the insertion of the disyllabic name “Shadwell” initially seems more appropriate than the insertion of the monosyllabic word “shit,” which, as mentioned earlier, is covertly brought to the reader’s attention by the poet. If the latter is inserted, the line’s musicality is ruined and its flow is disrupted. However, this is likely something Dryden expected and even intended. Because the line explains that something “almost choked the way,” forcing the reader to falter when reading this part of the poem, especially when reading it aloud, would link the literal effect of the mounds of excrement with their aural and mental effects. This “hiccup” would give life to the idea presented in verse, as Shadwell’s literature would in fact act as an obstruction. Therefore, Dryden’s inclusion of scatological elements in line 103 is far from juvenile because it is orchestrated to work on multiple levels, its effects being apparent in the poem’s narrative as well as in the readers mind.

The next merciless shaming of the son of Flecknoe occurs soon afterwards, when the new ruler of the realms of Nonsense finally appears and takes his place upon his throne. At this point, Dryden uses yet another allusion to excrement to belittle Shadwell and his works. The new prince is said to be sitting on a throne composed of “his own labors reared.” Under normal circumstances (in an actual poem of praise) these “labors” would signify commendable deeds and remarkable accomplishments, but this cannot be the case in a poem like Mac Flecknoe. The “labors,” in this case, represent Shadwell’s body of work, which, as seen earlier, makes up the “loads of Sh_____” that “almost choked the way” in line 103. Dryden reinforces this idea through the clever use of the word “reared.” Later in the poem, in line 125, it may be said that Psyche (one of Shadwell’s plays) was born from the prince’s loins, but in this case the playwright’s works have a different origin. In line 103, through simple wordplay, Dryden pushes astute readers to recognize an idea placed just out of sight and to build the vile image of Shadwell’s throne for themselves.

This “throne of excrement” also serves to criticize what Dryden perceived as Shadwell’s grossly inflated ego. Dryden thought it ridiculous, blasphemous even, for Shadwell to consider himself a member of the upper crust of comedy writers. He obviously believed Shadwell deserved no praise, and that the man was a fool to aspire to greatness. Thus, Dryden depicted a fitting throne for his nemesis. The image of a throne being fashioned from a prince’s own waste is extremely repulsive and would certainly suggest that the man’s glory is illusory and, in reality, of his own pathetic and uninspired creation.

When political differences led Thomas Shadwell to attack John Dryden with The Medal of John Bayes, he could never have anticipated the effectiveness of his rival’s counterattack. Shadwell unwittingly sealed his fate when he woke this sleeping beast. Mac Flecknoe became one of the greatest examples of defamatory literature ever written. Dryden steered away from juvenile name-calling, never overtly crossing the boundaries of good taste, and yet still managed to depict his opponent using incredibly vulgar ideas. He proved that even excrement could have a place in great literature. Perhaps he was also trying to flaunt his own talents by showing that he could render palatable even the crudest of subjects. A man who was well-liked in his time, Shadwell was far from an inconsequential playwright and poet, but because of his personification in Mac Flecknoe, he would be known, first and foremost, as the victim of Dryden’s genius. Contemporaries have been attacking each other in print for a long time, but such feuds can be fleeting. Dryden’s sullying of Shadwell’s image and reputation for centuries constitutes a tour de force.

Mac Flecknoe, lines 100 to 107

From dusty shops neglected authors come,
Martyrs of pies, and relics of the bum.
Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogilby there lay,
But loads of Sh_____ almost choked the way.
Bilked stationers for yeomen stood prepared,
And H_____ was captain of the guard.
The hoary prince in majesty appeared,
High on a throne of his own labors reared.

School Days of the Future

School Days of the Future
A Premonition by Dave

0750 hours. The alarm system installed in Jimmy’s brain is activated and the young boy immediately springs out of his floating cyber bed. Fresh clothes are sprayed onto him after all residual filth is microwaved off of his body. Jimmy teleports to the techno-kitchen with a hankering for sustenance. What will it be today? Nutrient paste? An intravenous omelet? Appetite suppressant? None of the above. Jimmy reaches for some old-fashioned Kellogg’s Laser Flakes. Scrumptious.

0755 hours. Still a full 3 minutes before the space bus arrives to take Jimmy to Moon School. Jimmy turns on his retinal projectors and selects one of the 500 000 video games to be found on the Playstation 44 he had installed in his head on his 14th birthday. Battlefield 2380 sounds good. Jimmy navigates a planet populated by 9 million other players. Oh no! The opposing team has used a magnet to send a 7 million ton meteor hurtling into Jimmy’s team’s headquarters. Game over. No time to fuss, though: the bus is finally here!

0758 hours. While hovering outside, the bus extends a long tube and sucks Jimmy through his living room window. The boy is dropped onto his designated seat and promptly warped to the moon.

0800 hours. Time for school! Jimmy is placed on a long conveyor belt along with billions of other students. He quickly moves toward the Wikipedia Mother Brain. Once he gets there, a mechanical arm thrusts a 3 inch syringe into his ear and pumps raw data into his head.

0804 hours. Jimmy has a pounding headache. He feels disoriented and violated, but he’s home again! Time for bed! Jimmy will need a full 43 hours to recover from today’s violent and invasive knowledge injection. Ah yes… These are the best years of Jimmy’s life.

The End