mock epic, a poem employing the lofty style and the conventions of epic poetry to describe a trivial or undignified series of events; thus a kind of satire that mocks its subject by treating it in an inappropriately grandiose manner, usually at some length. Mock epics incidentally make fun of the elaborate conventions of epic poetry, including invocations, battles, supernatural machinery, epic similes, and formulaic descriptions (e.g. of funeral rites or of warriors arming for combat). The outstanding examples in English are Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1712–14) and The Dunciad (1728–43), while Boileau's Le Lutrin (1674–83) is an important French example.
Adjective: mock‐epic or mock‐heroic.
See also burlesque, irony, parody.
