RSSGenre Parody used as satire
Feb 26
parody, stylistics caricature, Genette, satire, style No Comments
A good example of what Genette might call caricature, the parodic imitation of a style with satirical intent. The satire here is not directed at the style or the genre so much as using that genre and its stylistic features to satirise a social phenomenon.
[download the full pdf version from the original publication site here]
“The word parody is currently the site of a rather onerous confusion, because it s called upon to designate at times playful distortion, at times the burlesque transposition of a text, and on other occasions the satirical imitation of a style. The main reason for this confusion is obviously the functional convergence of the three formulas, each of whch produces a comic effect, generally at the expense of the text or style being “parodied.” [24]
“I propose therefore to (re)baptise as parody the distortion of a text by means of a minimal transformation of the Chapelain décoiffé type; travesty will designate the stylistic transformation whose function is to debase, à la Virgile travesti; caricature (but no longer, as previously, parody) will designate the satirical pastiche […]; and pastiche plain and simple would refer to the imitation of a style without any satircal intent, a type illustrated by at least some pages of Proust’s “L’Affaire Lemoine”. [25]
“I am therefore claiming not to censure the abuse of the word parody (since, in effect, this is what we are dealing with) but only to point it out and – because it is impossible to clear up this lexical area effectively – at least provide its users with a conceptual tool enabling them to check and focus with greater swiftness and accuracy what it is they are (probably) thinking about when they (haphazardly) utter the word parody. [26]
“Parody does not actually subject the hypotext to a degrading stylistic treatment but only takes it as a model or template for the construction of a new text which, once produced, is not longer concerned with the model. [27]
from
Gerard Genette. 1997 [1982] Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Translated by Channa Newman & Claude Doubinsky. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press
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