Editing Mock-heroic (section)

==History==
Historically, the mock-heroic style was popular in 17th-century Italy, and in the post-[[Restoration (England)|Restoration]] and [[Augustan literature|Augustan]] periods in Great Britain.

The earliest example of the form is the ''[[Batrachomyomachia]]'' ascribed to [[Homer]] by the Romans and parodying his work, but believed by most modern scholars to be the work of an anonymous poet in the time of Alexander the Great.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.carmentablog.com/2016/12/27/batrachomyomachia-classical-parody/|title=Batrachomyomachia: A Classical Parody – Carmenta Language School Blog|date=2016-12-27|work=Carmenta Language School Blog|access-date=2017-12-23|language=en-US}}</ref>

A longstanding assumption on the origin of the mock-heroic in the 17th century is that [[epic (genre)|epic]] and the [[pastoral]] genres had become used up and exhausted,<ref name="Griffin1994p135">Griffin, Dustin H. (1994) ''Satire: A Critical Reintroduction'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=MLM2edymLtUC&pg=PA135 p.&nbsp;135]</ref> and so they got parodically [[reprise]]d. In the 17th century the epic genre was heavily criticized, because it was felt to be merely expressing the traditional values of feudal society.

Among the new genres, closer to the modern feelings and proposing new ideals, the satirical literature was particularly effective in criticizing the old habits and values. Beside the Spanish [[picaresque novel]]s and the French [[burlesque]] novel, in Italy flourished the ''poema eroicomico''. In this country those who still wrote epic poems, following the rules set by [[Torquato Tasso]] in his work ''Discorsi del poema eroico'' (''Discussions about the Epic Poems'') and realized in his masterwork, the ''[[Jerusalem Delivered]]'', were felt as antiquated. The new mock-heroic poem accepted the same metre, vocabulary, rhetoric of the epics. However, the new genre turned the old epic upside down about the meaning, setting the stories in more familiar situations, to ridiculize the traditional epics. In this context was created the parody of epic genre.

''Lo scherno degli dèi'' (''The Mockery of Gods'') by [[Francesco Bracciolini]], printed in 1618 is often regarded as the first Italian ''poema eroicomico''.

[[File:Houghton MS Typ 619 - Amelonghi.jpg|thumb|Girolamo Amelonghi, 1547]]
However, the best known of the form is ''[[La secchia rapita]]'' (''The rape of the Bucket'') by [[Alessandro Tassoni]] (1622).

Other Italian mock-heroic poems were ''La Gigantea'' by Girolamo Amelonghi (1566), ''La moscheide'' by [[Giovanni Battista Lalli]] (1624), the ''Viaggio di Colonia'' (''Travel to Cologne'') by [[Antonio Abbondanti]] (1625), ''L'asino'' (''The donkey'') by [[Carlo de' Dottori]] (1652), ''La Troja rapita'' by [[Loreto Vittori]] (1662), ''[[Il Malmantile racquistato]]'' by [[Lorenzo Lippi]] (1688), ''La presa di San Miniato'' by Ippolito Neri (1764).

Also in Italian dialects were written mock-heroic poems. For example, in [[Neapolitan dialect]] the best known work of the form was ''La Vaiasseide'' by [[Giulio Cesare Cortese]] (1612). While in [[Romanesco dialect|Romanesco]] Giovanni Camillo Peresio wrote ''Il maggio romanesco'' (1688), Giuseppe Berneri published ''[[Meo Patacca]]'' in 1695, and, finally, Benedetto Micheli printed ''La libbertà romana acquistata e defesa'' in 1765.

After the translation of ''[[Don Quixote]]'', by [[Miguel de Cervantes]], English authors began to imitate the inflated language of [[Romance (heroic literature)|Romance]] poetry and narrative to describe misguided or common characters. The most likely genesis for the mock-heroic, as distinct from the [[picaresque novel|picaresque]], [[burlesque (literature)|burlesque]], and [[satire|satirical]] poem is the comic poem ''[[Hudibras]]'' (1662–1674), by [[Samuel Butler (poet)|Samuel Butler]]. Butler's poem describes a "trew blew" Puritan knight during the [[Interregnum (England)|Interregnum]], in language that imitates Romance and [[epic poetry]]. After Butler, there was an explosion of poetry that described a despised subject in the elevated language of heroic poetry and plays.

''Hudibras'' gave rise to a particular verse form, commonly called the "[[Hudibrastic]]". The Hudibrastic is poetry in closed rhyming couplets in iambic tetrameter, where the rhymes are often [[feminine rhyme]]s or unexpected conjunctions. For example, Butler describes the [[English Civil War]] as a time which "Made men fight like mad or drunk/ For dame religion as for punk/ Whose honesty all durst swear for/ Tho' not one knew why or wherefore" ("punk" meaning a prostitute). The strained and unexpected rhymes increase the comic effect and heighten the parody.  This formal indication of satire proved to separate one form of mock-heroic from the others. After Butler, [[Jonathan Swift]] is the most notable practitioner of the Hudibrastic, as he used that form for almost all of his poetry.

[[Poet Laureate]] [[John Dryden]] is responsible for some of the dominance among satirical genres of the mock-heroic in the later Restoration era.  While Dryden's own plays would themselves furnish later mock-heroics (specifically, ''[[The Conquest of Granada]]'' is satirized in the mock-heroic ''[[The Author's Farce]]'' and ''[[Tom Thumb (play)|Tom Thumb]]'' by [[Henry Fielding]], as well as ''[[The Rehearsal (play)|The Rehearsal]]''), Dryden's ''[[Mac Flecknoe]]'' is perhaps the ''[[locus classicus]]'' of the mock-heroic form as it would be practiced for a century to come.  In that poem, Dryden indirectly compares [[Thomas Shadwell]] with [[Aeneas]] by using the language of ''[[Aeneid]]'' to describe the coronation of Shadwell on the throne of Dullness formerly held by King Flecknoe.  The [[parody]] of Virgil satirizes Shadwell.  Dryden's prosody is identical to regular [[heroic verse]]:  iambic pentameter closed couplets.  The parody is not formal, but merely contextual and ironic. (For an excellent overview of the history of the mock-heroic in the 17th and 18th centuries see "the English Mock-Heroic poem of the 18th Century" by Grazyna Bystydzienska, published by Polish Scientific Publishers, 1982.)

After Dryden, the form continued to flourish, and there are countless minor mock-heroic poems from 1680 to 1780.  Additionally, there were a few attempts at a mock-heroic novel.  The most significant later mock-heroic poems were by [[Alexander Pope]].  Pope’s ''The Rape of the Lock'' is a noted example of the Mock-Heroic style; indeed, Pope never deviates from mimicking [[epic poetry]] such as [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' and [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]''.   The overall form of the poem, written in [[canto]]s, follows the tradition of epics, along with the precursory “Invocation of the [[Muse]]”; in this case, Pope's [[Muse]] is literally the person who prodded him to write the poem, [[John Caryll the younger|John Caryll]]: “this verse to Caryll, Muse, is due!” (line 3).  Epics always include foreshadowing which is usually given by an otherworldly figure{{citation needed|date=November 2013 }}, and Pope mocks tradition through Ariel the sprite, who sees some “dread event” (line 109) impending on Belinda.  These epic introductory tendencies give way to the main portion of the story, usually involving a battle of some kind (such as in the ''Iliad'') that follows this pattern: dressing for battle (description of Achilles shield, preparation for battle), altar sacrifice/libation to the gods, some battle change (perhaps involving drugs), treachery (Achilles ankle is told to be his weak spot), a journey to the Underworld, and the final battle.  All of these elements are followed eloquently by Pope in that specific order: Belinda readies herself for the card game (which includes a description of her hair and beauty), the Baron makes a sacrifice for her hair (the altar built for love and the deal with Clarissa), the “mock” battle of cards changes in the Baron’s favor, Clarissa’s treachery to her supposed friend Belinda by slipping the Baron scissors, and finally the treatment of the card game as a battle and the Baron’s victory. Pope’s mastery of the Mock-Heroic is clear in every instance.  Even the typical [[apotheosis]] found in the epics is mimicked in ''[[The Rape of the Lock]]'', as “the stars inscribe Belinda’s name!” (line 150). He invokes the same Mock-heroic style in ''[[The Dunciad]]'' which also employs the language of heroic poetry to describe menial or trivial subjects. In this mock-epic the progress of [[Dulness]] over the face of the earth, the coming of stupidity and tastelessness, is treated in the same way as the coming of civilization is in the ''[[Aeneid]]'' (see also the metaphor of ''[[translatio studii]]'').  [[John Gay]]'s ''[[Trivia (poem)|Trivia]]'' and ''[[Beggar's Opera]]'' were mock-heroic (the latter in [[opera]]), and [[Samuel Johnson]]'s ''[[London (Samuel Johnson poem)|London]]'' is a mock-heroic of a sort.

By the time of Pope, however, the mock-heroic was giving ground to narrative [[parody]], and authors such as Fielding led the mock-heroic novel into a more general novel of parody, although Fielding's ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling]]'' contains passages of pure mock-heroic.  The ascension of the novel drew a slow end to the age of the mock-heroic, which had originated in Cervantes's novel.  After [[Romanticism]]'s flourishing, mock-heroics like Byron's ''[[Don Juan (Byron)|Don Juan]]'' were uncommon.

Finally, the mock-heroic genre spread throughout Europe, in [[France]], in [[Scotland]], in [[Poland]], in [[Bohemia]], in [[Russia]]. The most noted mock-heroic poems in French were ''Le Vergile Travesti'' (''The disguised Vergil'') by [[Paul Scarron]] (1648–52) and ''[[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|The Maid of Orleans]]'' by [[Voltaire]] (1730). In [[macaronic Latin]] enriched with Scottish Gaelic expressions [[William Drummond of Hawthornden]] wrote ''Polemo-Middinia inter Vitarvam et Nebernam'' in 1684. The main author of mock-heroic poems in Polish was [[Ignacy Krasicki]], who wrote ''Myszeida'' (''Mouseiad'') in 1775 and ''Monacomachia'' (''The War of the Monks'') in 1778. In the same language Tomasz Kajetan Węgierski published ''Organy'' in 1775–77. The Bohemian poet Šebestiàn Hnĕvkovský in 1805 printed two mock-heroic poems: ''Dĕvin'' in Czech and ''Der böhmische Mägderkrieg'' in German. In 1791 the Russian poet [[N. P. Osipov]] published {{Interlanguage link|Eneida travestied|ru|3=Вергилиева Энеида, вывороченная наизнанку|lt=''Eneida travestied''}} ({{langx|ru|Вирги́лиева Энеи́да, вы́вороченная наизна́нку|italic=yes}}). [[Ivan Kotliarevsky]]'s mock-epic poem Eneyida (Ukrainian: Енеїда), written in 1798, is considered to be the first literary work published wholly in the [[modern Ukrainian language]].