Though predecessors in other languages included La secchia rapita (“la SECK-yah ra-PEE-ta”) by Alessandro Tassoni, the first work of this type in English is usually said to be Samuel Butler’s Hudibras. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this type of long poem that satirizes a trivial subject using elevated diction and epithets. English examples of poems in this two-word style include John Gay’s Trivia and The Dunciad.
ANSWER: mock-epic [or mock-heroic; accept heroi-comic]
[10e] This mock-epic opens by describing a “dire offence [which] from am’rous causes springs.” Sylphs led by Ariel fail to prevent the removal of Belinda’s hair in this poem by Alexander Pope.
ANSWER: The Rape of the Lock
[10h] This mock-epic by a different author begins with the title character, “pond’ring which of all his sons was fit / To reign, and wage immortal war with wit,” soon settling on a man who is “mature in dullness” and “stands confirm’d in full stupidity.”
ANSWER: Mac Flecknoe (by John Dryden)
<Liberty A, British Literature>