It should be noted that parody, if it is to be worth while, must be criticism. It is not by virtue of its self-imposed limita tions absolved from the duty of showing some fair cause for ridicule. But the target aimed at by the parodist is not always the poet whose dress he wears. Satire of current manners, politics, or morals may be conveyed by using parody as a vehicle more powerful and more authoritative than the author's unassisted pen. In such cases of borrowed thunder the original author is obviously receiving the tribute of flattery either to his greatness, or to his popularity, or to both. Where, however, imitation involves also criticism of the model imitated, adoration is less easily combined with mirth, and there are those who find all parodies of well-loved poets painful to read, if not blasphemous.
As an example of parody pressed to its extreme limit as a direct form of literary criticism, the following lines may be quoted:— 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 unacquainted with the A B C Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.
This mock sonnet by J. K. Stephen will be seen to embody a very general, if rather too sweeping, estimate of the poetry of Wordsworth, whilst copying alike the nobler and the less exalted mannerisms of that poet, turn by turn ; yet it preserves throughout these variations the authentic cadence of the sonnet form, serenely undisturbed.
Parody then, if well executed, has this merit, that it pours criticism swiftly into an unforgettable mould. But much that is written in the name of parody is either on the one hand clownish mimicry, or, on the other, of no more value than a school exercise neatly performed by an assiduous student. It may be added that several famous English poets have parodied their own poetry as a tour de force. But they have not done it well. (E. V. K.)