PARODY

AS CRITICISM

I n order to discuss p a r o d y as a critical device it is necessary to define the sense in which the term is to be understood. It is a well k n o w n fact that, in their wider applications, the words 'parody,' 'burlesque,' 'caricature,' and 'travesty' are often used interchangeably. But to equate the terms in this way is to blur some very important critical distinctions and to impoverish the meaning o f these words. Unfortunately the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and even the special studies are not very helpful here, because the definitions they give tend to be inadequate or to run together: they too often define one type in terms of another without clearcut discriminations. T h u s Dr. Johnson defines p a r o d y as 'a kind o f writing, in which the words of an author or his thoughts are taken, and by a slight change adapted to some new purpose.' 1 I n this definition the definer is so broad that it would equally well apply to, say, the mock-heroic. But a mock-heroic is not a parody, because it is not at all intended to ridicule or criticize its original; its sole aim is to amuse the reader b y applying a lofty style to a trivial theme. I n other words, it turns a dignified genre to witty use without cheapening it in any way. It is a p a r o d y o f the epic, but a p a r o d y in the eighteenth-century, not in the m o d e r n sense. ' P a r o d y ' is only one of the terms in the critical lexicon which have changed their meaning since the A u g u s t a n age. Professor L e h m a n n ' s definition of the concept of p a r o d y in his standard work on medieval p a r o d y is m u c h m o r e precise, t h o u g h too comprehensive for our literary purpose, since it includes as objects of p a r o d y manners and customs, events and personages: Ich verstehe hier unter Parodien nur solche literarischen Erzeugnisse, die irgendeinen als bekannt vorausgesetzten Text oder - in zweiter Linie - Anschauungen, Sitten und Gebr/iuche, Vorg/inge und Personen scheinbar wahrheitsgetreu, tats/ichlich verzerrend, umkehrend mit bewuszter, beabsichtigter und bemerkbarer Komik, sei es im ganzen, sei es im einzelnen, formal nachahmen oder anftihren. 2 But L e h m a n n ' s definition at least insists on the intended comic effect o f parody, which D r . J o h n s o n ' s does not, t h e r e b y ruling out m e r e adaptation and pastiche. It also differentiates p a r o d y f r o m travesty, by which we mean the treatment of high matters in grotesquely extravagant or trivial terms. T h e Oxford English Dictionary defines p a r o d y in its p r i m a r y sense as follows: A composition in prose or verse in which the characteristic turns of thought and phrase in an author or class of authors are imitated in such a way as to make them appear ridiculous, especially by applying them to ludicrously inappropriate subjects; an imitation of a work more or less closely modelled on the original, but so turned as to produce a ridiculous effect.

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W h a t is remarkable about this definition is that it extends parody so as to include imitation of an author's work in general, and even of the school to which he belongs. In other words, it includes what is commonly called 'burlesque,' i.e. a comic imitation of a school or type of writing familiar to the reader, such as Aestheticism, or journalese, or popular literature, rather than the work of a specific, identifiable author. It will be noted that, taken in this wider sense, burlesque bears the same relation to parody that cartooning bears to caricature: caricature uses actual people for its subjects, whereas the broader, draughtsman's art - cartooning - uses allegorical symbols not based upon identifiable personages. This means that, in actual practice, parody, or verbal caricature, is often much more interesting and subtle than burlesque, because it sets out to illustrate the philosophy and the stylistic mannerisms of an individual writer. But since the distinction between parody and this sense of burlesque is essentially one of particular and general, not one of kind, there is little to b e gained from it for the purposes of my argument. Nor am I concerned here with the special theatrical meaning of burlesque as a play that amusingly ridicules another play by grotesquely imitating aspects of it, as Buckingham's The Rehearsal mimicked serious heroic tragedies of the day. T h e word 'burlesque' has now almost lost its exclusive reference to the theatre: in England it may be a musical extravaganza, while in America it is a sort of variety show stressing bawdy humour and sex, now almost synonymous with striptease. In Kitchin's opinion the modern sense of the word also assumes 'a noisier, more farcical kind of imitation' 3 extended to a ridiculous extreme. Neither of these meanings is helpful to my purpose. I am offering my own conception of the nature of parody in the hope of either persuading the reader that it answers my purpose, or of prompting him to decide what should be added, or subtracted, or in some way modified. M y belief is that, for a discussion of parody as a critical device, even the O E D definition requires further amplification. I shall not insist on differentiating between prose and verse parody. It is true that in the history of English parody prose parody lags behind verse parody, because the awareness of prose style, except in the case of such highly exaggerated and mannered styles as Euphuism, was more tardily developed. 4 But the prose-verse distinction is not at all essential, and I propose to scrap it. W h a t is essential to parody as criticism is the distorted imitation of what the O E D calls 'the characteristic turns of thought and phrase' of an author or class of authors. T h o u g h style is of the essence of true parody, a successful performance does not concern itself with the 'outer form,' the surface devices of word, and of what John Crowe Ransom calls 'structure' and 'texture' only. It goes deeper, and concerns itself also with the 'inner form,' the attitude, tone, and purpose of the work parodied, and even with the psychological and philo-

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sophical habit of the parodee's mind, his spirit. To be effective, a parody must be a wilful distortion of the entire form and spirit of the writer, captured at his most typical moment. In other words, the very clever parodist must be capable of following and exaggerating a style and a train of thought precisely along the lines that the original author would have pursued from the given premises. Unfortunately the O E D definition does not specify the degree of distortion required. Of course parody involves a certain amount of impersonation, which means that the parodist should know the peculiarities of thought and style of his model well enough, in fact, 'to disguise himself as the model.' 5 As T. S. Eliot put it in a different context, 'the reason why some criticism is g o o d . . , is that the critic assumes, in a way, the personality of the author whom he criticises, and through this personality is able to speak with his own voice.' e It would seem that Eliot's remark equally applies to criticism through distorted imitation. The parodist should be capable of insinuating himself into his model, of assimilating and reproducing its most striking features, however without ever becoming his model. That is, in order to remain effective as parody, parody should not come too near its original. It should stop short of complete illusion. Accordingly a crude imitation, verbal echo, or pasfiche can never be a parody. Thus James Hogg's imitations of Scott's narrative poems are too close for parody. They are, in Kitchin's words, 'a wonderful facsimile of [Scott's] slapdash romantic style.' 7 They might have been written by some earnest and promising novice of his school, and might indeed be mistaken for one of the poorer pieces of Scott himself. But they can hardly be called parodies. On the other hand Byron's The Vision of Judgment is too far from its victim both in content and form to be good parody. It is satire rather than parody. True parody, therefore, is neither mere simian imitation nor uncontrolled modulation. It is a form of humorous yet controlled exaggeration. And it is exactly that quality of controlled exaggeration of the salient characteristics of its subject in which lies the value of parody as criticism. This leads me to my principal objection to the O E D definition: it ignores the element of criticism. Yet the fact remains that the finest Victorian and modern parodies are criticisms too. Apparently the conception of the genre has been subject to another shift of meaning, or at least of emphasis, since the great age of parody began. This change of meaning is plainly due to the addition of a large number of parodies in which criticism is of prime importance. The result has been a stretching of the genre in the direction of a more complex species. Though the O E D definition and quotations do not yet reflect this development (its latest quotation illustrating the primary meaning of 'parody' is dated I875), it is clear that a new generic pattern has emerged, a pattern in which criticism has become an essential. The perfect parody now is a kind of critical performance. It need hardly be emphasized

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that in this essay I am concerned with parody in this modern sense only. Another important criterion n o t included in the O E D definition is that the perfect parody must be beautiful in itself, i.e. it must be well written, unified, and aesthetically complete. The most perfec'~ parody is that which, in a small compass, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a writer, at his most characteristic moment, in the most beautiful manner.8 From this it follows that parody, in the sense in which I understand it, is not merely a craft, but also an art, and that the perfect parodist must be a finished and experienced craftsman and artist. The highest kind of this art-form is both critical and creative by nature. It is creative in the sense that it may produce beauty. In this respect it differs from ordinary literary criticism. Unlike much literary criticism, a genuine parody may have value as literature. Hence it is quite possible to enjoy a parody apart from its subject because a parody may be a good humorous piece of prose or poetry, a minor work of art even, in its own right. However, parodists are not only creators: they are also parasites, and when the author on whom they live dies and is forgotten, they die too. Parody is by nature ephemeral. It ages quickly. The only exception to this rule is the really superior parody, which can be read with joy apart from its model. But since the recognition of the original is a primary condition of the integral enjoyment of parody, it must be granted that the reader who is ignorant of the original is severely handicapped. A final point not touched upon in the O E D definition is the fact that the parodist should be able to combine admiration with laughter. Most good parodies happen to be written out of admiration rather than distaste or contempt. This is not so difficult to account for. Where the original has any real worth and distinction, no parodist can succeed who has not a fairly adequate sense of its distinctive merits. Indeed, the compliment of real parody consists in the attention given to the parodied work. One might even say that it is almost impossible for the parodist to make the mimetic effort unless he has enough sympathy, or at least empathy, to 'identify' himself with the parodee's work. 9 In fact, some of the best English parodies spring from a generous appreciation which is akin to love. Accordingly the most successful parodies are generally of those writers whom the parodist admires and whose genius he expects his reader, too, to revere. It is just because of this blend of reverence and mockery that parodees have been able to join in the laugh occasioned by their parodists, and that, with very few exceptions, the greatest modern parodists have made no enemies. Taken in the new generic sense analysed above, the highest kind of parody may be defined as a humorous and aesthetically satisfying composition in prose or verse, usually written without malice, in which, by means of a rigidly controlled distortion, the most striking peculiarities of subject matter and style of a literary work, an author, or a school or

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- Parody

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as c r i t i c i s m

type of writing, are exaggerated in such a way as to lead to an implicit value judgment of the original.

II After having thus tentatively established the nature of critical parody, the question arises: What exactly is the relation between this modern literary genre and literary criticism proper? What are the differences between the two critical disciplines, and what have they in common? As far as I know, this problem has never been studied in any detail. The subject is vast, space limited. I shall therefore plunge in medias res and sound dogmatic. O f course an obvious formal difference-between the two modes of criticism is that literary criticism proper is normally in prose, and that parody may be in either verse or prose. A more substantial difference is that the aim of literary criticism proper is what Wellek calls 'intellectual cognition,' 10 whereas parody aims at re-creating and exaggerating the fictional imaginative world of its model. This means that parody is a much more subtle critical device than ordinary literary criticism. It does not explicitly analyse, interpret, and evaluate as literary criticism does. It is existential. Unlike literary criticism proper it is an internal critical device which, on the face of it, makes the parodee speak with his own voice. It does not translate into discursive meaning the value judgment achieved by a confrontation with the original, but criticizes obliquely by suggestion or implication. Instead of the dissecting scalpel of modern literary criticism and its formidable armoury of non-literary techniques and jargon, parody employs a strictly 'intra-literary' technique within a narrowly prescribed margin. Connected with this difference is the fact that, unlike the analytic critic, the parodist is in no danger of falling into the 'heresy of paraphrase' (Cleanth Brooks) because it is not his business to express the meaning of a word, phrase, passage, or literary piece in other words. He has no need of explication. He is not an analyst, but a synthesist, a creator, an artist even. In this respect he clearly differs from the literary critic, who cannot be called an artist in the strict sense. Because parody always tends to stress the wholeness, the totality of content and form, of motifs, themes, tone and style, it is also less fragmentary than literary criticism proper. The parodist sets to work to make a new thing - similar to the already existing thing, but with differences. He is an artistic exaggerator, usually without malice, of the most salient features of a writer's style, subject matter, and personality. The general texture of the parody is similar to that of his model, but the peculiarities of patterning are slightly more pronounced, A mental comparison between the parody and the Neophilolo&us L

9

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Riewatd

- P a r o d y as c r i t i c i s m

remembered original naturally leads to an implicit value judgment in the reader. Unlike the object of literary criticism proper, the original of parody need not even be genuine. It may be a fictitious model larger than life which, through exaggeration, reveals more clearly the typical faults of a certain school or type of writing than could any genuine model. It is not too much to say that, in this respect at least, parody gains an advantage over ordinary literary criticism. A further difference between the two modes of criticism is that parody is not concerned with principles and does not establish general criteria. It is not a branch of theoretical criticism, but a very special and pleasant type of practical or 'applied' criticism, a kind of handicapped close reading. It is intuitive and impressionistic rather than judicial or academic, 'shorthand' for what the judicial or academic critic must write out at length. 11 This means that good parody can be more economical than the formal critique or review to which we have been accustomed since the Restoration. It can also be as trenchant and incisive a criticism as any direct, explicitly stated critique. It can even be more effective than that because it enables us to apprehend the characteristic idiosyncrasies of its original simultaneously, in a flash, as it were. Indeed, as E.V. Knox remarks, it is of the essence of parody '[to pour] criticism swiftly into an unforgettable mould.' 12 Because most parodies happen to be reactions to contemporary works, they also form a most sensitive body of immediate criticism of the poetry or prose of their period. Incidentally, such parodies prove that 'contemporaries are not always purblind critics of the literary output of their day,' 13 a truth which is sometimes obscured in formal literary manuals, especially with reference to Victorian poetry. It is not too much to say that the severest critics of Victorian poetry are still the Victorian parodists (see below). By its nature the highest kind of parody is also one of the most exacting of critical techniques. Instead of thrusting himself between the reader a n d the work of art, as the ordinary literary critic does, the parodist uses a more impersonal and indirect method. Like Keats's 'chameleon poet' he seems to have no identity. He manages to efface himself by removing the object criticized, through distorted imitation, to a plane other than reality, and it is this very indirection of criticism which permits him to convey his point of view without pedantry while maintaining an 'attitude of unconcern.' 14 Yet this unconcern is only apparent. It is evident that an author's style and subject matter cannot be distorted meaningfully without the assumption of a clear-cut point of view towards him and his writing. The parodist not only imitates the conspicuous elements of the content, style, and personality of his subject, but keeps his own distinct individuality as a 'needful point of view in the critic,' 15without, however, obtruding himself on the reader. But since this point of view is implied, not overtly stated, parody postulates a better informed and more intelli-

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gent reader than ordinary criticism does, a reader, that is, who would 'have at hand both the ability and information necessary to complete the implied meaning.' 18 For one thing it demands acute imagination on the part of the reader, who must be sufficiently familiar with the style and thought of the author parodied to recognize the prototype and, hence, to appreciate the rationale of its deformation. While the practical criticism of the so-called New Critics makes abundant use of explication in order to clarify the meaning of a poem, critical parody has to assume familiarity with its model as a prerequisite to full appreciation. In other words, critical parody is a fascinating kind of close rading, revealing to those who know the original, but hermetic to the uninitiated. Ideally the reader of this kind of parody must have the parodied poem or poet clearly in mind. Failing to appreciate the discrepancy between the parodist's stance and his original, the uncomprehending reader cannot even hope to experience parody as criticism. This means that the reader who does not know the original can enjoy the parody as poem only, not as criticism. After what has been said it need hardly be emphasized that, being a type of oblique or implicit criticism, parody also demands a much higher degree of cooperation between author and reader than ordinary literary criticism does. For the parodist addresses himself to a reader whom he regards as capable of grasping subtleties, of contributing intelligently to the act of translating into direct insights what he, the parodist, only implied. He elicits his reader's aid in completing the intended critical meaning of the work in hand. He creates a new reality by distorting his original, but he expects his reader to be able to recreate the reality from whence he departed and to achieve intellectual and aesthetic satisfaction, not only from doing so, but also from comparing the two realities. This means that the true parodist can only hope to appeal to a highly educated and critically perceptive minority, and that, unlike the ordinary literary critic, he remains at least partially un' intelligible to those who do not share his knowledge and intelligence. 1~ But perhaps the most characteristic difference between parody and literary criticism proper is that parody is a kind of 'Criticism without Tears,' It is a d e l i g h t f u l form of criticism because it is capable of disguising criticism in humour. Some of the amusement derived f r o m a clever parody undoubtedly lies in the sheer fun of the piece apart from the inherent criticism. That great master of critical parody, Max Beerbohm, once suggested that it is the proper function of the parodist 'to exaggerate the salient points of his subject so that we can, whilst we laugh at a grotesque superficial effect, gain sharper insight into the subject's soul.' 18 The laughter thus caused is purely aesthetic, i.e. removed from a personal consideration of the author except as he reveals himself through a distortion of his subject matter and style. By raising a harmless laugh the parodist contributes to the business of criticism a lightness of tone and an atmosphere of fun which enable the critic in him to escape

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the imputation of too great seriousness. 19 To be sure, any attempt to introduce a lighter tone into literary criticism ought to be encouraged. This is not to deny that literary criticism proper can be humorous in cases where it is not meant to be so. Just as parody may rise to become good criticism, criticism may descend to become bad parody. Examples abound. Before leaving this general discussion I would like to make two more points. First of all, there is some truth in Wordsworth's view expressed in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads that parody is 'a mode of false criticism.' 20 Wordsworth is here referring to the kind of parody which, divorcing content from form, imitates the metre, the language, and the syntax only, but not the matter. In my opinion it is this kind of unfair parody which is responsible for the widespread feeling that there is 'a certain bitterness.., inherent in parody,' 21 a bitterness which, for many readers, spoils their enjoyment of a beautiful poem. Obviously Wordsworth's verdict does not apply to parody in the sense in which I have defined it. As I have said, only when it exaggerates both matter and form can parody become genuinely critical. True parody is always critical, but, being inspired by a certain amount of sympathy, it does not make the reader devalue its original. It is this element of sympathy, admiration, or love even, that takes the sting out of what used to be called the genus irritabile. If, in spite of this a priori argument, there should still be a reader for whom a fine parody of, say, T.S. Eliot's poetry - for instance, Henry Reed's excellent Chard W h i t l o w - spoils the beauty of that poet's work, he should either not read parody at all, or develop his critical awareness by reading more of it. Finally I would like to emphasize a point already mentioned bij Macdonald. 22 In spite of what I have said, it has not been my intentioI~ to exaggerate the claims of parody as criticism. I hope I have made it clear that, by its very nature, parody cannot do the same things that literary criticism proper can do. In other words, parody can never be an adequate substitute for literary criticism in the narrow sense of the word. It should even be used with caution as literary criticism because it is by nature conservative and classical. Critical parody has been described as 'the reaction of central-minded persons to the vagaries of the modes, chiefly romantic.' 23 Indeed, what Macdonald calls 'the parodic campaign against the romantic-ornate' 24 stretches all the way from Rejected Addresses to Max Beerbohm's 'To a Young Woman.' It is certainly true that parody may be stimUlated by some outworn but still powerful tradition, as in Chaucer's Sir Thopas; but more often it is seen to react to an avantgarde whose innovations are felt to be absurd. Thus, according to J.H. Buckley, 'Victorian parody served to restore a lost perspective; laughter prodded eccentric genius into an awareness of common reality.' 25 In other words, parody naturally tends to be the watch-dog of established forms, a correction of literary extremes. As Macdonald remarks, these

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extremes can be either of over-simplicity or of ornateness, of lopsidedness or of extravagance. The two most frequently and effectively parodied nineteenth-century English poets are the 'simple' Wordsworth and the 'complex' Browning. The most parodied American poet is Walt Whitman, who combined the simple and the ornate in a peculiarly irritating and individual way. These, and similar examples clearly point to a limitation of parody as criticism: parody, as the authors of Rejected Addresses were quick to see, tends to confine itself to 'writers whose style and habit of thought, being more marked and peculiar, was more capable of exaggeration and distortion.' 36 This tendency seriously restricts the scope of critical parody because it seems to ignore the fact that the absence of any 'marked and peculiar' style and habit of thought is a symptom of mediocrity rather than of talent. 27 III So much, then, for definitions and distinctions. As for the story of English parody itself, there is no need to summarize it here. This has been excellently done by Kitchin and others, to whom I am deeply indebted. Yet in order to set my modern examples of critical parody in the true perspective, it is necessary to glance at a few highlights in the history of this neglected literary kind. For reasons of space I shall mainly confine myself to verse parody. Before the seventeenth century there is only one first-rate specimen of verse parody in which we may see the beginnings of literary criticism and that is Chaucer's Sir Thopas. The second English parodist of any importance is Shakespeare. I need not remind the reader of Love's Labour's Lost, in which Shakespeare ridicules the verbosity of Renaissance pedants, and of Hamlet, Act II, scene ii, 11. 454 ft., where, as has been tentatively suggested, ~s he criticizes the bombastic diction of Marlowe and his school. During the seventeenth century parody remained almbst the sole means of criticism, treating high matters in a low style, until John Philips reversed this approach in his Milton parody 'The Splendid Shiflling,' first published in 17Ol. Dr Johnson, with his usual perspicacity, at once assessed this famous and much imitated mock-epic at its true value as 'a mode of writing new and unexpected' [itaIics mine]. And he continues: To degrade the sounding words and stately constructionof Milton byan application to the lowestand most trivial things, gratifiesthe mind with a momentarytriumph over that grandeur which hitherto held its captives in admiration; the words and things are presented with a new appearance, and noveltyis alwaysgratefulwhere it gives no pain. ~9 Indeed, Philips's poem, as a later critic observes, 'created for the art of parody a finished technique' 30 by reproducing many of the most salient stylistic characteristics of Paradise Lost, such as the inversions~ the.

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parentheses a n d appositions, t h e c o m p o u n d epithets, t h e L a t i n i s m s , t h e epic similes, a n d t h e r e s o u n d i n g lists o f strange and sonorous p r o p e r names. P h i l i p s ' s p a r o d y opens as follows: Happy the Man, who void of Cares and Strife, In Silken, or in Leathern Purse retains A Splendid Shilling: He nor hears with Pain New Oysters cry'd, nor sighs for chearful Ale; But with his Friends, when nightly Mists arise, To Juniper's, Magpye, or Town-Hall repairs: Where, mindful of the Nymph, whose wanton Eye Transfix'd his Soul, and kindled Amorous Flames, Chloe, or Phillis; he each Circling Glass Wisheth her Health, and Joy, and equal Love. Mean while he smoaks, and laughs at merry Tale, Or Pun ambiguous, or Conundrum quaint. T h e p o e m ends w i t h a wail over a hole in t h e p o o r p o e t ' s b r e e c h e s : My GalIigaskins that have long withstood The Winter's Fury, and Encroaching Frosts, By Time subdu'd, (what will not Time subdue!) An horrid Chasm disclose, with Orifice Wide, Discontinuous; at which the Winds Eurus and Auster, and the dreadful Force Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian Waves, Tumultuous enter with dire chilling Blasts, Portending Agues. Thus a well-fraught Ship Long sail'd secure, or thr6 th' AF.geanDeep, Or the Ionian, 'till Cruising near The Lilybean Shoat, with hideous Crush On Scylla, or Charybdis (dang'rous Rocks) She strikes rebounding, whence the shatter'd Oak, So fierce a Shock unable to withstand, Admits the Sea; in at the gaping Side The crouding Waves Gush with impetuous Rage, Resistless, Overwhelming; Horrors seize The Mariners, Death in their Eyes appears, They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray: (Vain Efforts!) still the battering Waves rush in Implacable, 'till delug'd by the Foam, The Ship sinks found'ring in the vast Abyss. 81 By the close o f t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y a n d t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h e n i n e t e e n t h verse p a r o d y r e a c h e d m a t u r i t y in The Anti-Jacobin (I798) a n d she Rejected Addresses (I812). P e r h a p s t h e finest b r i e f p r o d u c t i o n of t h e t h o r t - l i v e d , reactionary Anti-Jacobin is G e o r g e C a n n i n g ' s ' T h e F r i e n d o f H u m a n i t y a n d t h e K n i f e - G r i n d e r , ' w h i c h n o t only p a r o d i e s t h e sapphics a n d sentiments o f S o u t h e y ' s ' T h e W i d o w ' , b u t a political a n d social a t t i t u d e as well: FRIEND

OP HUMANITY

'Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going? Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order Bleak blows the blast; - your hat has got a hole in 't, So have your breeches!

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Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, 'Knives and Scissars to grind O !' Tell me Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the squire? or parson of the parish; Or the attorney? Was it the squire, for killing his game? or Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining? Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little All in a lawsuit? (Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your Pitiful story.' KNIFE-GRINDER

'Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, Sir, Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle. Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-stocks for a vagrant. I should be glad to drink your Honour's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; But for my part, I never love to meddle With Politics, Sir.' FRIEND

OF HUMANITY

'I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damn'd firstWretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast !' Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy, sz

W i t h the Rejected Addresses of Horace a n d James Smith we pass out of the area of political and social s q u a b b l i n g which, as K i t c h i n remarks, 'is n o t the t r u e province of the delightful art of parody.' 33 M o s t of the Smith parodies are directed against t h e E n g l i s h R o m a n t i c poets: W o r d s worth, Coleridge, Scott, Southey, Byron, Moore. T h e best of t h e m all is the rather wicked ' W o r d s w o r t h ' , i n which the Smiths exerted t h e m selves 'to p u s h [that poet's] simplicity into puerility a n d silliness. '34 A s m i g h t be expected, the parody is w r i t t e n i n what J. K. S t e p h e n was to call the voice of the 'old half-witted sheep,' the voice, that is, h e a r d i n poems like 'Alice Fell' a n d ' W e are Seven.' I quote a few of the o p e n i n g stanzas:

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Riewald - Parody as criticism THE BABY'S DEBUT

[Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.] My brother Jack was nine in May, And I was eight on New-year's-day; So in Kate Wilson's shop Papa (he's my papa and Jack's) Bought me, last week, a doll of wax, And brother Jack a top. Jack's in the pouts, and this it is, He thinks mine came to more than his; So to my drawer he goes, Takes out the doll, and, O my stars! He pokes her head between the bars, And melts off half her nose ! Quite cross, a bit of string I beg, And tie it to his peg-top's peg, And bang, with might and main, Its head against the parlour door: Off flies the head, and hits the floor, And breaks a window-pane .... Aunt Hannah heard the window break, And cried, 'O naughty Nancy Lake, Thus to distress your aunt: No Drury Lane for you to-day !' And while papa said, 'Pooh, she may!' Mamma said, 'No, she shan'tt' Well, after many a sad reproach, They got into a hackney coach, And trotted down the street. I saw them go: one horse was blind, The tails of both hung down behind, Their shoes were on their feet. 8~

Incidentally, the Wordsworth parody entitled 'Further Extract from ' T h e R e c l u s e , ' a P o e m : T h e F l y i n g T a i l o r , ' p u b l i s h e d f o u r y e a r s later i n H o g g ' s The Poetic Mirror, a n o t h e r f a m o u s b o o k o f v e r s e p a r o d i e s o f ' L i v i n g B a r d s ' [ H o g g ' s phrase], is still b e t t e r . H o g g ' s p o e m , w h i c h parodies the more pedestrian passages in 'The Prelude,' 'The Excursion,' a n d ' T h e R e c l u s e , ' o p e n s as f o l l o w s : If ever chance or choice thy footsteps lead Into that green and flowery burial-ground That compasseth with sweet and mournful smiles The church of Grassmere, - by the eastern gate Enter - and underneath a stunted yew, Some three yards distant from the gravel-walk, On the left-hand side, thou wilt espy a grave, With unelaborate head-stone beautified, Conspicuous 'mid the other stoneless heaps 'Neath which the children of the valley lie. There pause - and with no common feelings read This short inscription - 'Here lies buried The Flying Tailor, aged twenty-nine l' 3s

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Rather surprisingly, the great age of critical literary parody is the midVictorian period, the age of Charles Stuart Calverley and James Kenneth Stephen, better known to their contemporaries as 'C. S.C.' and 'J. K. S.' Both Calverley and Stephen were classically-educated Oxford and Cambridge wits, who ridiculed all kinds of inferiority and eccentricity in poetry. Of course the age of Calverley and Stephen was also the age of two of the best writers of pure or significant nonsense, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. But I do not want to discuss them in this context because there is no clear intention of literary criticism in their work: most of their verses were primarily written for entertainment only. From Calverley and Stephen the mantle descended to that subtlest " of all modern literary parodists, Max Beerbohm, a writer who, until recently, was in danger of becoming the property of cliques of elderly gentlemen with a taste for whimsy. A study of his satires and parodies is enough to prove that this was a bad case of mistaken identity.

IV After this quick historical survey we may now look at a few specimens of critical verse parody written by C. S. Calverley, J. K. Stephen, and Max Beerbohm, the trio whom we must regard as the greatest exponents of that art. CHARLESSTUARTCALVERLEY(I 831 --1884) was a man of powerful intellect, deep scholarship, and delightful wit. The most engaging example of his precocious quickness of repartee is his well known reply to the Master of BaUiol, Dr.Jenkyns, who, at 'Collections,' asked Calverley the following question: 'And with what feelings, Mr. Blayds [Calverley's old surname under which he was known at Oxford], ought we to regard the decalogue?' Having no very clear idea of what was meant by the decalogue, Calverley gave the following 'very proper answer,' as Dr. Jenkyns called it: 'Master, with feelings of devotion, mingled with awe! '37 Calverley became first known as a translator from Homer, Virgil, Theocritus, and Horace into English verse, and from Herbert, Milton, Pope, Tennyson and other English poets into Latin verse. These translations certainly helped him to become a successful parodist. For, as Calverley's editor remarks, the parodist 'may be regarded as a kind of pseudo-translator, in so far as what he aims at is a deliberately partial and one-sided representation of his original.' 38 The three parodies by 'C. S.C.' with which I propose to deal here were all published in his immensely popular Fly Leaves (I872; eighteen editions before the end of the century). His most ambitious attempt at literary parody is his 'Browning', entitled 'The Cock and the Bull.' Its opening lines at once catch the authentic Ring and the Book manner, or rather mannerism:

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R i e w a l d - P a r o d y as c r i t i c i s m

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur (You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?) Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange 'Chop' was my snickering dandiprat's own term One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four Pence, one and fourpence - you are with me, sir? What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock, One day (and what a roaring day it was Go shop or sight-see - bar a spit o' raint) In February, eighteen sixty nine, Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei Hm - hrn - how runs the jargon? being on throne. Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum - what you will Of the impending eighty thousand lines. 'Not much in 'em either,' quoth perhaps simple Hodge. But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit. a9 If, as has b e e n suggested, W o r d s w o r t h was t h e most f r e q u e n t l y p a r o d i e d serious p o e t in t h e n i n e t e e n t h century, B r o w n i n g was certainly second. ' I t was not only,' M a c d o n a l d writes, ' t h a t each h a d eccentricities of style a n d t h o u g h t t h a t c o u l d easily be m o c k e d ; it was also, I think, t h a t t h e c o m b i n a t i o n o f a b s u r d i t y a n d elevation o p e n e d especially wide t h e gap w h i c h t h e p a r o d i s t exploits.' 4o A s p a r o d y ' T h e C o c k a n d the Bull' is absolutely killing, t h o u g h p e r h a p s it concentrates too exclusively on t h e stylistic extravagance o f B r o w n i n g ' s b l a n k verse: its o b s c u r i t y d u e to t h e involved syntax, t h e v e r b a l tricks, the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f technical language, a n d t h e quaint L a t i n p u n n i n g ; its metrical liberties; and, m o r e generally, its colloquiality, quizzicality, a n d garrulity. M u c h m o r e effective t h a n Calverley's p a r o d y o f B r o w n i n g is his treatm e n t o f such m i n o r Victorian poets as Jean Ingelow. H i s f a m o u s 'Ballad,' o f w h i c h I q u o t e t h e first part, is a critical p a r o d y o f the revived b a l l a d o f t h e Rossetti a n d W i l l i a m M o r r i s school, w i t h its o b b l i g a t o b u t often inconsequent, a n d even nonsensical refrain, w h i c h was one o f t h e favourite devices of the P r e - R a p h a e l i t e poets: The auld wife sat at her ivied door, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

A thing she had frequently done before; And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees. The piper he piped on the hill-top high, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

Till the cow said 'I die,' and the goose ask'd 'Why?' And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.

R i e w a l d - Parody as criticism

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The farmer he strode through the square farmyard; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) His last brew of ale was a trifle hard The connexion of which with the plot one sees. The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) If you try to approach her, away she skips Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, W h i c h wholly consisted of lines like these. ~1 H o w e v e r , C a l v e r l e y ' s m a s t e r p i e c e is h i s v e r s i o n o f J e a n I n g e l o w ' s ' D i v i d e d , ' a p o e m w h o s e false s e n t i m e n t a n d a r c h a i s m o f s t y l e r e n d e r e d it particularly obnoxious to parody. Here are a few stanzas from Jean Ingelow's poem: A n empty sky, a world of heather, Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom; W e two among them wading together, Shaking out honey, treading perfume .... W e two walk till the purple dieth And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green like a ribbon to prank the down .... Hey the green ribbon! we kneeled beside it W e parted the grasses dewy and sheen; Drop over drop there filtered and slided A tiny bright beck that trickled between. Tinkle, tinkle, sweetly it sung to us, Light was our talk as of fa~ry bells; Fa~ry wedding-bells faintly rung to us Down in their fortunate parallels .... Stately prows are rising and bowing (Shouts of mariners winnow the air), And level sands for banks endowing The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair. *~

And here are a few corresponding stanzas from Calverley's parody of it, entitled 'Lovers, and a Reflection' (with some of the more striking parallels italicized): In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; Meaning, however, is no great matter) Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween; Thro' God's own heather we wonn'd together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waver'd alow, above:

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R iewald - Parody as criticism Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,

(Boats in that climate are so polite), And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, And O the sundazzle on bark and bight[ .... By rises that flush'd with their purple favours, Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, We walked and waded, we two young shavers, Thanking our stars we were both so green. We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, In fortunate parallels! Butterflies, Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes. 4s Obviously Calverley here parodies the nebulous t h o u g h t and false feeling, the sacrifice of sense to the exigencies of sound, the pitiful archaic diction, the flimsy tune, and the weakness in r h y m i n g of the Victorian w o m a n poets in general, and of Jean Ingelow in particular. V JAMES K E N N E T H S T E P H E N ( I 8 5 9 - I 8 9 2 ) is o f the school of Calverley. H e was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow in I885. His two collections of light verse, Lapsus Calami and Quo M u s a Tendis? were both published in r89 r. Lapsus Calami, the more popular of the two, was reprinted four times within a year of its appearance. Stephen's ' W o r d s w o r t h , ' constructed a r o u n d a famous line in a famous W o r d s w o r t h sonnet, 44 was first published in The G r a n t a (Cambridge), June I89 r. It is a superb example o f what I mean b y critical p a r o d y : Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep: And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes, The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst: At other times - good Lord[ I'd rather be Quite unacquaintect with the A. B. C. Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst. 4s This p a r o d y is a perfect illustration of what Mrs, Richardson calls J. K.S.'s peculiar ability 'to probe deep into the very heart and m i n d of his original.' as After neatly diagnosing what is still the greatest W o r d s w o r t h p r o b l e m : the curious d i c h o t o m y between the sublime and the ridiculous in his art, the parodist goes on to criticize the naive realism of poems like 'Simon Lee,' ' G o o d y Blake and H a r r y Gill,' and ' T h e T h o r n . '

Riewald - Parody as criticism

I4I

S t e p h e n ' s ' W o r d s w o r t h ' is n o t o n l y a m o n u m e n t o f p a r o d i c wit, b u t also a real critical v e r d i c t o n t h e e n t i r e f o r m a n d s p i r i t o f his subject. I n ' S i n c e r e F l a t t e r y o f W . W . ( A m e r i c a n u s ) , ' also p u b l i s h e d i n The Grants ( F e b r u a r y I 8 9 I ) , S t e p h e n m a n a g e s to hit off, i n a s m a l l c o m pass, t h e peculiarities o f f o r m a n d m a t t e r of W a l t W h i t m a n ' s Leaves of Grass: The clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder, The whistle of the railway guard despatching the train to the inevitable collision, The maiden's monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal, The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural; All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea to let your very ribs re-echo with: But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player. 4~ A c t u a t e d b y a critical s e n s e s p r i n g i n g f r o m g e n u i n e a p p r e c i a t i o n , J. K. S. here parodies the almost volcanic exuberance of W h i t m a n ' s sweeping free-verse lines, t h e i r h y b r i d phraseology, t h e r e p e t i t i o n a n d p a r a l l e l i s m o f t h e i r i n t e r m i n a b l e catalogues, a n d t h e i r s u g g e s t i o n o f a c o s m i c philosophy. B u t S t e p h e n ' s finest a c h i e v e m e n t is u n d o u b t e d l y his ' S i n c e r e F l a t t e r y ' as o f R o b e r t B r o w n i n g , first p u b l i s h e d i n t h e Cambridge Meteor for J u n e 18821 Birthdays? yes, in a general way; For the most if not for the best of men: You were born (I suppose) on a certain day: So was I: or perhaps in the night: what then? Only this : or at least, if more, You must know, not think it, and learn, not speak: There is truth to be found on the unknown shore, And many will find where few will seek. For many are called and few are chosen, And the few grow many as ages lapse: But when will the many grow few: what dozen Is fused into one by Time's hammer-taps?

9

A bare brown stone in a babbling brook: It was wanton to hurl it there, you say: And the moss, which clung in the sheltered nook (Yet the stream runs cooler), is washed away. That begs the question: many a prater Thinks such a suggestion a sound 'stop thiefl' Which, may I ask, do you think the greater, Sergeant-at-arms or a Robber Chief? And if it were not so? still you doubt? Ah ! yours is a birthday indeed if so. That were something to write a poem about, If one thought a little. I only know.

O f this p a r o d y it has b e e n said t h a t it r e p r o d u c e s ' n o t o n l y t h e v e r y a c c e n t s o f [ B r o w n i n g ' s ] voice, t h e e x u b e r a n t , s u r g i n g r h y t h m s i n w h i c h

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R i e w a l d - Parody as criticism

he delighted, but also the true quality of his obscurity - the enigmatic aphorism, the ironic, sidelong glance, the sudden ejaculation, the queer shifts of mood, the swivelling turn that casts an unexpected ray of light upon the chosen theme, the attempt to cram a metaphysical speculation within the compass of a gnostic utterance.' 49 But this is not the whole story. T h e real reason why Stephen's 'Sincere Flattery' of Robert Browning is superior to Calverley's ' T h e Cock and the Bull' is that, besides parodying the loquacity and contorted pungency of Browning's style, it illustrates the vehemence and impulsiveness of his poetry, its tremendous dash and verve, and also its ratiocination degenerating into casuistry and sophistry. 50 Stephen's poem ends with the following 'P. S.' : There's a Me Society at Cambridge, Where my works, cure notis variorum, Are talked about; well, I require the same bridge That Euclid took toll at as Asinorum: And, as they have got through several ditties I thought were as stiff as a brick-built wall, I've composed the above, and a stiff one it is, A bridge to stop asses at, once for all. Sl It was this P.S. which inspired Beerbohm's deathless caricature entitled 'Robert Browning, taking tea with the Browning Society,' 53 in which a rosy and healthy-looking poet is sitting unconcernedly among an admiring crowd of pale aesthetes and earnest scholars. VI In conclusion let me say a few words about that greatest, that rarest of modern parodists, the inscrutable 'Max.' SIR MAX BEERBOmX (I872--I956) was educated at Charterhouse and Merton College, Oxford. He is best known as a saririst, critic, parodist, and caricaturist. It is not too much to say that he was the first in England to parody complex modern prose styles, imitating the subtlest intonations, the living gestures almost, of his models. With him critical parody, both in prose and verse, becomes a very delicate art. For, though many people think of Beerbohm as, primarily, a prose parodist, he has written a not inconsiderable number of verse parodies also. ~8 T h e best single book of prose parodies in the English language still is his A Christmas Garland, first published in I912. Indeed, the whole history of the genre from medieval times downward seems to have been a mere preparation for this exquisite collection of 'skin-tight' parodies. T h e book consists of a series of variations on the central theme of Christmas, supposed to be contributed by Henry James, Kipling, Wells, Hardy, Conrad, and a dozen other living writers. T h e critical value of these 'supposititious' contributions is so great that it would not be at all inappropriate to use

Riewald - Parody as criticism

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A Christmas Garland as a set text for an academic course on the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century novel. With the exception of the 'Sequelula' to Hardy's The Dynasts, these parodies are all in prose. Unfortunately they are too long to quote in toto. Another lengthy parody is the celebrated "Savonarola' Brown', first published in 19 19.54 This poetic drama is a burlesque of the kind of neo-Elizabethan blank verse tragedy written by Stephen Phillips about the turn of the century. Finally, Beerbohm's novel Zuleika Dobson has been discussed as a fantastic parody, stylistic and otherwise, of the stories of Oscar Wilde. 55 But it would take too much of my space to analyse any of these longer prose or verse parodies. Instead I propose to deal with a few of the shorter ones. Beside the Christmas Garland parody of Henry James, there are two earlier, more succinct ones accompanying two caricatures of the novelist. One of these refers to James's revisiting America. In this caricature Max shows the returned expatriate surrounded by various American locals, whose reaction to him is mixed. A little girl is staring at the vast dome of James's head, and exults: 'My! Ain't he cree-ative?' A negro boy is doing a cakewalk in celebration of James's arrival; he is singing: 'We wants you mighty badly-Yas, we doo !' An Indian chief is impassive but pleased: 'Hail, great white novelist! Tuniyaba-the spinner of fine cobwebs !' A negro mammy is ecstatic : 'Why, it's Masser Henry! Come to your old nurse's arms, honey!' A plump, effete Harvardian, gazing at him without enthusiasm, inquires: 'What's-the matter with-James?', to which a hostess answers languidly: 'He's-all-right!', and so on, and so forth. James, not looking at anybody, lifts a deprecatory hand to still this polyphony of welcome; and Max gives us an extract from the master's 'Unspoken Thoughts,' a perfect five-line parody of the entire form and spirit of Henry James: not only of his elaborate sentence structure and other circuitous mannerisms, but also of the slow, tortuous movement and extreme introspection of his thought:

... so that, in fine, let, without further beating about the bush, me make to myself amazed acknowledgementthat, but for the certificate of birth which I have, so very indubitably, on me, I might, in regarding, and, as it somewhat were, overseeing,d l'o3il de voyageur, these dear good people, find hard to swallow, or even to take by subconscious injection, the great idea that I am - oh, ever so indigenously!-one of them... 5, This is caviare, the best of all prose parodies I have ever read. T h e most brilliant satire on the Aesthetes and Decadents of the Nineties is Beerbohm's story 'Enoch Soames', which contains two verse parodies of their mildly revolutionary pose. T h e first, entitled ' T o a Young Woman,' is a mockery of the doctrine of negation and, in Stevenson's words, of the kind of 'obscurantism which, under the name of symbolism, is said to refer to images so personal that the reader cannot h o p e to share the poet's experience :' 57

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R i e w a l d - P a r o d y as c r i t i c i s m Thou art, who hast not been!

Pale tunes irresolute And traceries of old sounds Blown from a rotted flute Mingle with noise of cymbals rouged with rust, Nor not strange forms and epicene Lie bleeding in the dust, Being wounded with wounds. For this it is That in thy counterpart Of age-long mockeries Thou hast not been nor art! 5~

But these verses also parody the logical inconsistency of the Nineties poets 59 (compare the first and last lines), the general decadence Of their language (more particularly the vague tonal effects achieved at the cost of meaning), their facile mixing of metaphors ('traceries of old sounds'), the stock references to decay and death and to the music of flutes and cymbals, the metrical irregularities, their violation of grammar (note the exquisite double negative 'nor not' instead of 'and'), their redundancy of diction ('wounded with wounds'), their precious vocabulary ('rouged with rust', 'epicene'), in short, their own particular application of the doctrine of Art for Art's sake. Max's second parody of those belated Romantics, the decadent poets of the Nineties, is entitled 'Nocturne' : Round and round the shutter'd Square I stroll'd with the Devil's arm in mine. No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was there And the ring of his laughter and mine. We had drunk black wine. I scream'd, 'I will race you, Master!' ' W h a t matter,' he shriek'd, 'to-nlght Which of us runs the faster? There is nothing to fear to-night In the foul moon's light!'

Then I look'd him in the eyes, And I laugh'd full shrill at the lie he told And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise. It was true, what I'd time and again been told: He was old - old. e0 This parody obviously centres upon the 'self-conscious moral and religious inconsistency' 61 of the fin-de-si~cIe decadents, as evinced by their dabbling in Satanism, Soames being a 'Catholic Diabolist.' T o me these two verses from 'Enoch Soames' represent the best of Beerbohm's criticism of the Aesthetic movement in England. Another fine example of Max's art are the lines inspired by BeUoc's 'Noel' and 'Heretics All': 82 One Christmas Night in Pontgibaud (Pom-pom, rub-a-dub-dub)

A man with a drum went to and fro (Two merry eyes, two cheeks chub)

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Riewald - Parody as criticism

Nor not a citrll within, without, But heard the racket and heard the rout And marvelled what it was all about (And who shall shrive Beelzebub?)

He whacked so hard the drum was split (Pom-pom, rub-a-dub-dum)

Out lept Saint Gabriel from it (Praeclarissimus Omnium)

Who spread his wings and up he went Nor ever paused in his ascent Till he had reached the firmament (Benedicamus Dominum). ,8

T h i s p a r o d y is a g o o d - n a t u r e d criticism o f tl~e lyrical q u a l i t y o f Belloc's songs, o f his m a s t e r y o f cadence, his m e d i e v a l i z i n g Catholicism, and his a d m i r a t i o n o f F r e n c h poetry. M y last B e e r b o h m q u o t a t i o n deals w i t h R u d y a r d Kipling. M a x ' s lifelong aversion to h i m arose f r o m his feeling t h a t K i p l i n g was d e b a s i n g his genius b y w h a t he wrote. K i p l i n g was, in O s c a r W i l d e ' s phrase, 'a genius w h o d r o p s his aspirates.'"4 B e e r b o h m d e t e s t e d t h e vulgarity, or rather vulgarization, o f K i p l i n g ' s t r u e talent, a n d t h e r e f o r e he p u r sued h i m relentlessly, setting h i m s e l f to expose his superficiality in caricatures, critical articles, a n d one u n f o r g e t t a b l e p r o s e p a r o d y . "5 But recently a h i t h e r t o u n k n o w n verse p a r o d y has c o m e to light, in w h i c h M a x ridicules t h e cheap s e n t i m e n t a n d m e c h a n i c a l r h y t h m o f a K i p l i n g p o e m t h a t was p a r t i c u l a r l y offensive to him. W h e n E d w a r d V I I d i e d in I 9 I o , K i p l i n g wrote an o b i t u a r y verse e n t i t l e d ' T h e D e a d K i n g ' in his m o s t u n i n t e l l i g e n t a n d b o m b a s t i c a l l y h e a v y - h a n d e d m a n n e r . K i p ling's p o e m concludes as follows: Who in the Realm to-day has choice of the easy road or the hard to tread? And, much concerned for his own estate, would sell his soul to remain in the sun? Let him depart nor look on Our dead. Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself has done. e6 A n d this is M a x ' s a b s o l u t e l y paralysing a d d i t i o n to t h e last stanza o f Kipling's panegyric: Wisely and well was it said of him, 'Hang it all, he's a Mixture of Jesus, Apollo, Goliath and Julius Caesar l' Always he plans as an ever Do-Right-man, never an Err-man, And never a drop of the blood in his beautiful body was German. 'God save him,' we said when he lived, but the words now sound odd, For we know that in Heaven above at this moment he's saving God. 6~ j.G. RI~.WAL D.

University o f Groningen.

Notes This article was originally written as a paper delivered before the English Section of the Nederlands Filologencongres at Nijmegen in the spring of I964, and is here frankly presented as such, although somewhat amplified and documented for publication. L A Dictionary of the English Language (London: Thomas Tegg, 183 i), vol. II, p. 28 I. Neophilologus L

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R i e w a l d - Parody as criticism

2. Paul Lehmann, Die Parodie im MitteIalter (2nd ed. rev. ; Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, I963), p. 3. With Lehmann's definition of parody compare the definition given by Erwin Rotermund in Die Parodie in der modernen deutschen Lyrik (Mfinchen: Eidos Verlag, 1963), P.9: 'Eine Parodie ist ein literarisches Werk, das aus einem anderen Werk beliebiger Gattung formal-stilistische Elemente, vielfach auch den Gegenstand fibernimmt, das Entlehnte aber teilweise so ver~indert, dasz eine deutliche, oft komisch wirkende Diskrepanz zwischen den einzelnen Strukturschichten entsteht. Die Ver~inderung des Originals, das auch ein nut fiktives sein kann, erfolgt dutch totale oder partiale Karikatur, Substitution (Unterschiebung), Adjektion (Hinzuf0gung) oder Detraktion (Auslassung) und dient einer bestimmten Tendenz des Parodisten, zumeist der bloszen Erheiterung oder der satirischen Kritik. Im zweiten Falle ist das Vorbild entweder Objekt oder nut Medium der Satire.' Rotermund's book also contains the best short history of the concept of parody (pp. Io-22). Gilbert Highet's study of parody in The Anatomy of Satire (Princeton University Press, 1962) is too rigidly Aristotelian to be enlightening. 3. George Kitchin, A Survey of Burlesque and Parody in English (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, i93i), p.xxii. 4. See Kitchin, op. cit., especially p. I52. 5. David Henry Stevenson, 'The Critical Principles and Devices of Max Beerbohm' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, I955), p. ioi. 6. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism: Studies in the Relation of Criticism to Poetry in England (London: Faber and Faber, I933), p. II2. 7. Op. cir., p. 216. See the two Scott parodies, 'Epistle to Mr. R.S.****' and 'Wat o' the Cleuch,' in James Hogg's The Poetical [sic] Mirror, ed. T.Earle Welby (London: The Scholartis Press, I929), pp. I9-8I. Strictly speaking, the rather laboured stylistic imitations in James Joyce's Ulysses are not parodies, but pastiches. Cf. Harry Levin, James Joyce: A Critical Introduction (rev. ed. ; Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, I96o), pp. IO5-Io7, and J.-J.Mayoux, 'Parody and Self-Mockery in the Work of James Joyce,' English Studies Today, Third Series, ed. G.I. Duthie (Edinburgh University Press, 1964), pp. 187-I 98. For a discussion and examples of conscious and unconscious self-parody in other authors see Dwight Macdonald (ed.), Parodies: An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm - and After (London: Faber and Faber, I96I), pp. 457-49I, and Leslie A.Fiedler, Waiting for the End: The American Literary Scene from Hemingway to Baldwin (London: Jonathan Cape, I965), pp. io, I4. 8. Cf. Beerbohm's definition of caricature in 'The Spirit of Caricature', A Variety ' of Things (Collected Edition, vol. X; London: William Heinemann, 1928), p. 216 : 'The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment, in the most beautiful manner.' 9. Macdonald, pp.xiii-xiv. Io. Ren~ Wellek, Concepts of Criticism, ed. Stephen G. Nichols, Jr. (New Haven: Yale University Press, [i963] ), p. 4. I L Macdonald, p.xiii. For a general analysis of contemporary critical methods and theories see R. S. Crane, The Languages of Criticism and the Structure of Poetry (University of Toronto Press, I953) and William Righter, Logic and Criticism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, I963). 12. Quoted in Mrs. Herbert Richardson, Parody (The English Association, Pamphlet No.92; London: Oxford University Press, I935), p. 6. I3. Kitchin, p.ix. I4. Stevenson, p. 132. 15. Max Beerbohm, 'A Play and a Mimic,' The Saturday Review (London), XCVII, No. 2537 (II June I9o4), 748. I6. Stevenson, p. 68. I7. For a fuller discussion of this problem see Stevenson, pp. 68, I3I, I89"I9 o. I8. 'A Play and a Mimic,' loc. cit., 749. I9. Cf. Stevenson, pp. i48-i49. 20. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed. E. de Selincourt, vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I944), p. 402. 2I. William Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral (London: Chatto an~t Windus, I93.5), p. 263. 22. Op. cir., p. xiv. 23. Kitchin, p.x. 24. Op. cit., p. 56I.

Riewald - Parody as criticism

I47

25. Jerome Hamilton Buckley, 'Victorianism,' Victorian Literature: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Austin Wright (3rd printing; New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 12. 26. Horace and James Smith, Rejected Addresses or The New Theatrum Poetarum (London: George Routledge, [n. d.]), p.xxiii, quoted in Macdonald, p.xv. 27. Cf. Macdonald, pp.xv, 560 and 563. 28. For instance by John Dover Wilson in his edition of Hamlet (The New Shakespeare, 2nd ed. rev.; Cambridge: University Press, 1936), p. 184. 29. Life of John Philips, Lives of the English Poets (Everyman's Library), vol. I, PP. 273, 276. 3o. Richardson, p. IO. 31. The Poems of John Philips, ed. M.G.Lloyd Thomas (The Percy Reprints, No.X; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1927), pp. 3, 7-8. On 'The Splendid Shilling' see also Richmond P. Bond, English Burlesque Poetry 1700-575o (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I932 ), pp. IOO-I IO, 244-245, and passim. 32. The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Canning, ed. J.W.Lake (Paris: Baudry, Bob~e and Hingray, i828), pp. 80-82. 33. Op. cir., p.2o7. 34. Rejected Addresses, Preface to the eighteenth edition, 1833, op. cit., p.xxiv. 35. Op. cit., pp.47-5o. Written by James Smith. 36. Op. cit., p.99. 37. The Complete Works of C. S. Calverley, ed. Sir Walter J. Sendall (London: George Bell, 19oi), p.xx. 38. Ibid., p.xxxiv. 39. Ibid., p. llO-IIl. 40. Op. cir., P.74. 41. Calverley, op. cit., pp. 78-79 . 42. Poems by Jean Ingelow (3rd impr. ; London: George Routledge, [n. d.]), pp. I, 2, 5. 43. Calverley, op. cit., pp. IO8, lO9. 44. 'The world is too much with us...' 45. James Kenneth Stephen, Lapsus Calami and Other Verses (Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes, I928), p. Io6. 46. Op. cit., p. 21. 47. Stephen, op. cit., p.3 I. 48. For Stephen's attitude to Browning the reader is referred to his 'A Parodist's Apology', the first stanza of which runs: If I've dared to laugh at you, Robert Browning, 'Tis with eyes that with you have often wept: You have oftener left me smiling or frowning, Than any beside, one bard except. Op. cit., p. lO5. 49. John Press, The Chequer'd Shade: Reflections on Obscurity in Poetry (Oxford Paperback; London: Oxford University Press, I963), p.8I. 50. For a modern evaluation of the qualities of Browning's poetry see William O. Raymond, The Infinite Moment and Other Essays in Robert Browning (2nd ed. rev. ; University of Toronto Press, 1965). 5I. Stephen, ol). cit., pp. 24-25. 52. The Poets' Corner (London: William Heinemann, I9O4), plate 2. 53. See Max in Verse: Rhymes and Parodies by Max Beerbohm, ed. J.G.Riewald, with a Foreword by S. N. Behrman (Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1963 ; London: William Heinemann, 1964). 54. Seven Men (London: William Heinemann, I919), pp. 175-219. 55. See the present writer's Sir Max Beerbohm, Man and Writer: A Critical Analysis with a Brief Life and a Bibliography (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, I953), pp. 137-139 9 56. A Book of Caricatures (London: Methuen, i9o7), plate XLVIII. 57. Op. cit., p. I3O. See also Edmund Wilson, Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of I87o-z93o (The Fontana Library, I96I), pp.9-27. 58. Seven Men, p. 16. 59. For texts see A.J.A.Symons (ed.), An Anthology of 'Nineties' Verse (London: Elkin Mathews and Marrot, 1928). 6o. Seven Men, p. 17.

I48

Riewald- Parody as criticism

61. Stevenson, p. I3O. 62. Hilaire Belloc, Collected Verse, ed. Ronald Knox (Penguin Books, 1958), pp. to7 108, 121.

63. A Christmas Garland (London: William Heinemarm, I912), pp. 15o-151. 64. 'The Critic as Artist,' Intentions (i 6th ed. ; London: Methuen, 1947), PP. 2o7-2o8. 65. I am referring to 'P.C., X, 36,' in A Christmas Garland, pp. 13-2o. 66. Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Inclusive Edition 1885-1926 (6th impr. ; London: Hodder and Stoughton, I93I), p. 223. 67. Max in Verse, p. I26.

Xn C O N G R t ~ S I N T E R N A T I O N A L DE LA FI~Dt~RATION INTERNATIONALE DES LANGUES ET LITTERATURES MODERNES Selon la d~cision prise lors du dernier Congr~s ~ N e w York en aofit I963, le Xe Congrds International de la Fdddration Internationale des Langues et Litt~ratures Modernes se tiendra ~ la Facultfi des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de l'Universit~ de Strasbourg du 29 aoftt au 3 septembre ~966. I1 sera pr~sid~ par le Professeur John ORR, membre de l'Acad~mie britannique, president de la F.I.L.L.M., vice-Pr~sident de la Soci&~ de Linguistique romane. Au cours des journ~es pr~c~dentes, du 23 au 28 aoft, seront organis~es l'intention des congressistes diverses rencontres, visites et excursions. Le th~me g~ndral du Congr~s sera le suivant: le rdel dans la littgrature et et dans la langue. I1 sera trait~ dans trois sections parall~les: rre Section: La part de l'actuel dans la creation littgraire; 2e Section: La sdmantique historique et l' inteIligence des textes; 3e Section: Les dchanges culturels et la langue. L e Bureau d'Organisation se propose d'inscrire au programme du Congr~s plusieurs sdances pldni~res, chacune d'une heure, qui seront consacrfies ~ des exposes de probl~mes fondamentaux relatifs aux th~mes indiqu~s. Les communications ne devront d@asser en aucun cas la durge de 20 minutes chacune. Elles seront suivies de discussions durant IO minutes au m~ximum. D~lai d'inscription des communications, avec indication du titre exact: le ~er ddcembre ~965 pour l'inscription dans la deuxi~me circulaire; le I5 avril z966 pour l'inscription dans la troisi~me et derni~re circulaire.