Preface


It’s sometimes said no classic is unequal
To being boosted by a later sequel:
Just think Jane Eyre and how its USP
Was bigged up by The Wide Sargasso Sea
Or how old Yahweh’s first semester went
Through reappraisal in the Testament
That came out later, so in retrospect
It’s Love that made God leave those lives so wrecked,
Hope & Charity that fuelled His wrath
When smiting all those schmucks He polished off
Although, in justice, I must now append
A spoiler here: Christ dies before the end,
But nonetheless, despite St Paul then sending
All those epistles, there’s a Happy Ending!
And think about those sequels just awaiting
An author so they can commence inflating
Their great precursor’s immortality!
Like Incense and Insensibility,
Brideshead Revisited’s long overdue
Return to high-class Oxford Catholic spew
About how Charles & Julia’s tragic spawn’s
All choked to death on technicolour yawns,
Despite which Faith helps everybody cope
And then Sebastian Flyte becomes the Pope.
That’s merely one example of the type
Of cynical and cheap commercial tripe
That over, over, over and again
Keeps Hollywood execs in good cocaine.
So why can’t literature steal movies’ purse
And then milk dry the Marvell Universe?
Coy Mistress V: The Mistress Just Got Coyer
Would knock ’em dead! And still more no lawyer
Can touch you when you’re churning out this shite
Especially if there’s no copyright!
So while a porno Wasteland may well shock
(‘Come in me in the shade of this red cock!’)
One should never try to be too staunch
In holding back the tides of filth and raunch,
Huge swathes of which already felt at home!
You never read ‘The Lays of Ancient Rome’?

But I digress. Regarding Pope’s The Dunciad,
Some of you will be aware the cunts he had
To suffer drove him to this epic whinge
Despite quite never using words like ‘minge’
Or dropping c-bombs onto all those shockers
From sweary Messerschmitts and foul-mouthed Fokkers.
He wrote, of course, before the Chatterley Trial
And we’ve now done things differently for a while
So none of you, I’m sure, will need reminding
Of the effing or the endless blinding
Disfiguring vast tracts of English Lit
Even before that Larkin verse. No shit!

Nonetheless, I humbly apprehend
This sequel’s title’s talent to offend,
Should you decide its bashful asterix
Is playing dirty-minded childish tricks
Masking o’er the alphabet’s third letter.
I'm here to serve. It might make you feel better
Pretending that it masks the letter ‘h’;
I’m mocking hunts; as Swift might say, ‘to taych’
Fresh morals via metaphors and tropes
(Most of them mine, though some of them are Pope’s),
And to thereafter analyse and parse,
Dot ‘i’s, cross ‘t’s and then please kiss my ‘r’s.

Forgive me – or do not – for my retorts.
Nor is what follows canarding blood sports,
Unless you take in under that umbrella
All human vice. ‘Oi! Get back in yer cellar!’
You might well respond. ‘Just stick to drawing!’
You add, in cadences approaching roaring.
Fair point (though strictly speaking, it’s collages
That illustrate this text). ‘Jesus! Farage is
Saint-like when compared to all the liberties
You’ve taken with poor Pope’s disabilities!
His text! His verse! His meter! Reputation!
His genius that’s garlanded our nation
For centuries, you prick! You should be banned, be
Cancelled...!’ If I may just quote Tristram Shandy
And urge ‘Now keep your temper’, I concede
This work may well dismay you, though I plead,
Even if my many crimes are pleadable,
Be honest: the original’s unreadable.
But be that as it may be, please don’t frown;
I’m always punching up, not kicking down;
Please don’t cry or pout, whine or look so wan;
All shall be well, dear reader. Now read on.