parody

parody, from the Greek πapwdía, normally held to have meant a song sung counter to or alongside another song. The term parody first referred to a narrative poem in epic metre, but is not generally restricted in later use. The parodist must both imitate and create incongruity in relation to the pretext, and parody has, contrary to pastiche, traditionally had a comic dimension. Unlike satire, parody targets a pre-existing text, rather than persons or events in the real world. The classical mock-epic tradition and Aristophanes' parodies of Euripides' tragedies provide early examples of the genre. Liturgical parody and parodies of sacred texts flourished in the Middle Ages, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contains parodic elements. Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Joyce's Ulysses are celebrated examples of what has been called ‘general parody’, a form in which parody is central to the plot and structure of the whole work. Often writing in the mock-epic tradition, Swift, Pope, Sterne, and Fielding all used parody. Shamela, attributed to Fielding, is an example of parody's potential as criticism. Rejected Addresses (1812), by James and Horace Smith, was influential in its time, and there was a strong popular tradition of parody in the 19th cent. William Hone was acquitted in three famous trials after having parodied the litany, the Athanasian Creed, and the church catechism. Beerbohm is perhaps the finest prose parodist in the language.