ABSTRACT
'An Epic Poem, the Criticks agree, is the greatest Work Human Nature is capable of.' So said Martinus Scriblerus in Pope's 'Receipt to make an Epic Poem'. Pope's 'capable of' is a tell-tale sign, for although the words occur in an Art of Sinking in Poetry or the mock-commentary to a mock-epic, Pope is mocking neither the sentiment, nor Dryden, nor epics. The successors to Milton whose tribute to epic took the form of mock-heroic poems, but who like Milton had no wish to convey any radically hostile imputation against the epic originals, effected the separation by the method, though not in the manner, which he appeared to propose: by largely avoiding the subject-matter of war. It is seldom remarked that when we speak of mock-heroic, we almost always refer to stylistic or rhetorical parody, and hardly ever to the characteristic subject-matter of epic poems. The mock-epic of The Battle of the Books is also mock journalese.
