Parody - Definition and Examples of Parodies in English

Parody s of Parodies in English Definition A parody is a  text that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect. Adjective: parodic. Informally known as a spoof. Author William H. Gass observes that in most cases parody grotesquely exaggerates the outstanding and most annoying features of its victim (A Temple of Texts, 2006).See Examples and Observations below. Also see: AmphigoryCaricaturePasticheSatire Words at Play: An Introduction to Recreational Linguistics Examples of Parodies Christmas Afternoon, by Robert BenchleyHow Shall I Word It? by Max BeerbohmJack and Gill: A Mock Criticism, by Joseph DennieA Meditation Upon a Broomstick, by Jonathan SwiftThe Most Popular Book of the Month, by Robert BenchleyShakespeare Explained: Carrying on the System of Footnotes to a Silly Extreme, by Robert BenchleySome Historians, by Philip Guedalla You! by Robert Benchley EtymologyFrom the Greek, beside or counter plus song   Examples and Observations [P]arody works only on people who know the original, and they have to know it intimately enough to appreciate the finer touches as well as the broad strokes of the imitation. Part of the enjoyment people take in parody is the enjoyment of feeling intelligent. Not everyone gets the joke: if you dont already know about the peach, you wont laugh at the prune. Its fantasy baseball for bookworms.(Louis Menand, Parodies Lost. The New Yorker, Sep. 20, 2010) Lewis Carrolls Parody of a Poem by Robert SoutheyOriginal PoemYou are old, Father William,’ the young man cried;‘The few locks which are left you are grey;You are hale, Father Williama hearty old man:Now tell me the reason, I pray.’‘In the days of my youth,’ Father William replied,‘I remember’d that youth would fly fast,And Abus’d not my health and my vigour at first,That I never might need them at last. . . .(Robert Southey, The Old Mans Comforts and How He Gained Them, 1799)Lewis Car rolls Parody‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,‘And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your headDo you think, at your age, it is right?’‘In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son,‘I feared it might injure the brain;But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,Why, I do it again and again. . . .(Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, 1865) Lord of the Rings ParodyAnd that boy of his, Frito, added bleary-eyed Nat Clubfoot, as crazy as a woodpecker, that one is. This was verified by Old Poop of Backwater, among others. For who hadnt seen young Frito, walking aimlessly through the crooked streets of Boggietown, carrying little clumps of flowers and muttering about truth and beauty and blurting out silly nonsense like Cogito ergo boggum?(H. Beard, The Harvard Lampoon, Bored of the Rings, 1969) Characteristics of Parodies[M]ost parody worthy of the name is ambivalent toward its target. This ambivalence may entail not only a mixture of criticism and sympathy for the parodied text, but also the creative expansion of it into something new. Most other of the specific characteristics of parody, including its creation of comic incongruity between the original and the parody, and the way in which its comedy can laugh both at and with its target, may be traced to the way in which the parodist makes the object of the parody a part of the parodys structure.(Margaret A. Rose, Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern. Cambridge University Press, 1993) Six Parodies of Ernest Hemingway  - Most of the tricks were good tricks and they worked fine for a while especially in the short stories. Ernest was stylish in the hundred-yard dash but he didnt have the wind for the long stuff. Later on the tricks did not look so good. They were the same tricks but they were not fresh any more and nothing is worse than a trick that that has gone stale. He knew this but he couldnt invent any new tricks.(Dwight Macdonald, Against the American Grain, 1962)- I went out into the room where the chimney was. The little man came down the chimney and stepped into the room. He was dressed all in fur. His clothes were covered with ashes and soot from the chimney. On his back was a pack like a peddlers pack. There were toys in it. His cheeks and nose were red and he had dimples. His eyes twinkled. His mouth was little, like a bow, and his beard was very white. Between his teeth was a stumpy pipe. The smoke from the pipe encircled his head in a wreath. He lau ghed and his belly shook. It shook like a bowl of red jelly. I laughed. He winked his eye, then he gave a twist to his head. He didnt say anything.(James Thurber, A Visit From Saint Nicholas (In the Ernest Hemingway Manner). The New Yorker, 1927)- I rolled into Searchlight around midnight and walked into Rosies beer joint to get a cold one after the ride over from Vegas. He was the first one I saw. I looked at him and he stared back at me with those flat blue eyes. He was giving me that kind of howdy wave with his good right arm while his left sleeve hung armless from the shoulder. He was dressed up like a cowboy.(Cactus Jack, The One-Armed Bandit, 2006 Bad Hemingway competition)- This is my last and best and true and only meal, thought Mr. Pirnie as he descended at noon and swung east on the beat-up sidewalk of Forty-fifth Street. Just ahead of him was the girl from the reception desk. I am a little fleshed up around the crook of the elbow, thought Pirnie, but I commute good.(E.B. White, Across the Street and Into the Grill. The New Yorker, Oct. 14, 1950)- We had great fun in Spain that year and we traveled and wrote and Hemingway took me tuna fishing and I caught four cans and we laughed and Alice Toklas asked me if I was in love with Gertrude Stein because I had dedicated a book of poems to her even though they were T. S. Eliots and I said, yes, I loved her, but it could never work because she was far too intelligent for me and Alice Toklas agreed and then we put on some boxing gloves and Gertrude Stein broke my nose.(Woody Allen, A Twenties Memory. The Insanity Defense, 2007)- In the late afternoon the Museum was still there, but he was not going to it any more. It was foggy in London that afternoon and the dark came very early. Then the shops turned their lights on, and it was all right riding down Oxford Street looking in the windows, though you couldnt see much because of the fog.(David Lodge, The British Museum Is Falling Down, 1965) David Lodge on ParodyIn a way, it may be impossible for writers themselves to identify what is parodiable in their own work. It may be dangerous even to contemplate it. . . .One would suppose that any writer whos any good has a distinctive voicedistinctive features of syntax or vocabulary or somethingwhich could be seized on by the parodist.(David Lodge, A Conversation About Thinks in Consciousness and the Novel. Harvard University Press, 2002) Updike on ParodyPure parody is purely parasitic. There is no disgrace in this. We all begin life as parasites within the mother, and writers begin their existence imitatively, within the body of letters.(John Updike, Beerbohm and Others. Assorted Prose. Alfred A. Knopf, 1965) Weird Al Yankovics Chamillionaire ParodyLook at me, I’m white and nerdyI wanna roll withThe gangstasBut so far they all think I’m too white and nerdyFirst in my class here at MITGot skills, I’m a champion at DDMC Escherthat’s my favorite MCKee p your 40, I’ll just have an Earl Grey tea.My rims never spin, to the contraryYou’ll find that they’re quite stationary.All of my action figures are cherrySteven Hawking’s in my library.My MySpace page is all totally pimped outGot people beggin’ for my top eight spaces.Yo, I know pi to a thousand placesAin’t got no grills but I still wear braces.(Weird Al Yankovic, White and Nerdyparody of Ridin by Chamillionaire) Pronunciation:  PAR-uh-dee