The Dunciad

The four-book version of The Dunciad includes the names of many of the individual Dunces, but the original edition did not. What does Alexander Pope gain by naming the subjects of his mockery, and what does he lose?

The Martin Scriblerus persona is named in The Dunciad as the author of many of the notes and introductory materials. What do you think the pros and cons would have been if the author had published those sections under his own name?

The notes provide necessary context today (as well as in Pope’s own time), but how do they serve aesthetic and thematic purposes as well as utilitarian ones? How do the notes contribute to the satirical and critical goals of the text?