The Dunciad

While The Dunciad doesn’t have a typical protagonist, the goddess Dulness is the work’s driving force. She directs and instigates all the action. She seems to be all-powerful, able to command and influence countless minions, arrest the progress of wisdom and knowledge around the world, and transport large numbers of people across great distances instantaneously, among many other abilities: “Time itself stands still at her command” (1: 71).

Her chief desire is to return the earth to its prehistoric state of ignorance and baseness, a world completely under her control. To this end, she engages the services of the dullest, crudest, and least scrupulous members of English society. The foolish and the boring aid her cause equally. She showers praise and gifts upon those whose works speed up the decay of intellectual standards on earth.

Very little is mentioned of Dulness’s appearance or background. In Book 1, the narrator states that she ruled the world before the advent of writing and that her parents are Chaos and Night, but nothing more of substance is mentioned about her. Even when she is described as sitting on her throne in Book 4, her head is obscured by clouds.