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Brewer's: Dunciad

The dunce-epic, a satire by Alexander Pope. Eusden, the poet laureate, being dead, the goddess of Dulness elects Colley Cibber to be his successor. The installation is celebrated by games…

Theobald, Lewis

(Encyclopedia) Theobald, LewisTheobald, Lewistĭbˈəld, thēˈōbôld [key], 1688–1744, English author. He is chiefly remembered for his Shakespeare Restored (1726), in which he exposed the inaccuracies of…

Haywood, Eliza (Fowler)

(Encyclopedia) Haywood, Eliza (Fowler), 1693?–1756, English author. Separated from her husband, she supported herself and her two children by writing plays and novels. Two of her books, Utopia (1725…

Scriblerus Club

(Encyclopedia) Scriblerus Club, English literary group formed about 1713 to satirize “all the false tastes in learning.” Among its chief members were Arbuthnot, Gay, Thomas Parnell, Pope, and Swift.…

Tate, Nahum

(Encyclopedia) Tate, NahumTate, Nahumnāˈhəm [key], 1652–1715, English poet and dramatist, b. Dublin. He wrote several popular adaptations of Shakespeare, the most famous being his King Lear (1681),…

Bentley, Richard

(Encyclopedia) Bentley, Richard, 1662–1742, English critic and philologist. Generally considered the greatest of English classical scholars, he was also an Anglican clergyman who became (1717) Regius…

Cibber, Colley

(Encyclopedia) Cibber, ColleyCibber, Colleysĭbˈər [key], 1671–1757, English dramatist and actor-manager. Joining the company at the Theatre Royal in 1690, Cibber became successful as a comedian,…

Brewer's: Dunce

A dolt; a stupid person. The word is taken from Duns Scotus, the learned schoolman and great supporter of the immaculate conception. His followers were called Dunsers. Tyndal says, when…

Brewer's: Dunderhead

A blockhead, or, rather, a muddle-headed person. Dunder, is the less or dregs of wine, etc., more correctly, the overflow of fermented liquors (yeast). (Spanish, re-dundar, to overflow or…

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was called "The Wicked Wasp of Twickenham" for his stinging literary satires of his fellow writers. But Pope also was a poet whose mastery of the heroic couplet has kept him in the…