PARODY (Lat. front Gk. rapweia, parody, from repo, para, beside, beyond + (AV, song, ode, front izeidetv, aeidcin, view, adcin, to sing). As understood by the Greeks in early times, it .parody was a comic imitation of an epic poem or of some part of it. The rhapsodists, in reciting the Iliad or the Odyssey, were accus tomed, it is said, to throw in humorous passages of their own. composed in the style and metre of the original, but on a trivial subject. From this use the term was extended to the comic imitation of any poem, and afterwards to the comic imitation of any variety of prose, such as history and fiction. Parody, like travesty, is a form of burlesque. The essence of burlesque is the treatment of a light theme in the style appropriate to a serious work. Such, for ex ample, is Chanter's Nun's Priest's Tale, wherein the hubbub caused by Allister Itcynard in the widow's household is described in language sug gestive of the fall of Troy. The humor in the contrast between subject matter and the treatment of it. In the travesty, such as the clever L'Enjide trarestie of Paul Searron. the characters of the original are turned to a humorous account by some change in the in cidents that results in a debasement of the original theme. In the parody, the theme and characters are greatly modified or completely changed, lint the style of-the original is closely followed in those peculiarities that easily lend themselves to ridicule.
Though the word parody has conic to us from the Greeks, it is not to be supposed that they were the first people to feel the impulse toward this kind of satire. Parody belongs to the folk literature of many and perhaps all raves. in very early literary stages, writers have laid hold of their legal and religious phrases for giving a humorous turn to the common affairs of life. All that can be said is that the parody as a distinct literary type of satire has been handed down from the Greeks, giving form to the folk parodies of the Western nations. The first Greek parodist, according to Aristotle, was liegemon of Thasos (fifth century u.c.), who gained a prize at the Athenian games with his Giganto marhia, or Battle of the Giants. By others the invention of the form has been ascribed to Hipponax (fifth century u.e.). But these are doubtful traditions. At any rate, the best ex
tant parody of the epic among the Greeks is The Battle of the Frogs and the Alice, running closely on the lines of a lidnieric combat, and dating from the second or the third century before Christ. At a later period great renown was won, it is said, by a certain CEnonas, Greek born in Italy, who burlesqued the public reeiters of Homer by transforming Polyphemus into a sentimental lover, and by giving Ulysses the speech of the common people. The great master of parody was Aristophanes. into whose comedies were taken over whole passages of Euripides and many current phrases for the purpose of ridicule. Aristophanes was followed by Lucian, who in The Dialogues of the Gods freely employed the language of Bonier, and in The True History built up an extravagant ro mance on incidents from the Mad and contempo rary tales of adventure. That the Itomans were fond of parody is known from Cicero, who in be Ur•ceiure enumerates its several kinds. Catullus was a favorite with the parodist, and \ergil did not escape.
Among the Romans are found the first parodies of the legal testament, or will. It was a custom, as early as the time of Julius Clusar, for men to satirize their enemies by scurrilous remarks in their wills. Out of the practice seems to have grown the humorous testament. in which some animal, a pig or an ass, bequeaths at death his property or qualities to posterity. These animal testaments, of which the earliest one extant goes back to the third century of our era. spread through the Latin races, appearing in French, Spanish, and Portuguese during the early Renaissance. Akin to them are the many imaginary testaments written on various occa sions in later times. A fine specimen is The Will by •John Donne, the Elizabethan poet. Closely related to the humorous testament is also the parody on the epitaph, which goes hack to the Middle Ages. This kind of satire is seen in its perfection in the Ballade des pr.tolus of Francois Villon, composed in anticipation of the gallows. Indeed, both the Lesser and the Greater Testament of Villon are parodies so excellent in their kind as to form a type. Almost equally famous is Goldsmith's Retaliation on the imagined death of his friends, including Burke, Garrick. and Reynolds.