Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. I

by Unknown

The first attribute of a parody is that it should present a sharp contrast to the original either in subject, or treatment of the subject; that if the original subject should be some lofty theme, the parody may reduce it to a prosaic matter-of-fact narrative. If, on the other hand, the topic selected be one of every day life, it may be made exceedingly amusing if described in high-flown mock heroic diction. If the original errs in sentimental affectation, so much the better for the parodist. Thus many of Tom Moore's best known songs are mere windy platitudes in very musical verse, which afford excellent and legitimate materials for ridicule. The nearer the original diction is preserved, and the fewer the alterations needed to produce a totally opposite meaning or ridiculous contrast, the more complete is the antithesis, the more striking is the parody; take for instance Pope's well-known lines:—

"Here shall the Spring its earliest sweets bestow,

Here the first roses of the year shall blow,"

which, by the alteration of two words only, were thus applied by Miss Katherine Fanshawe to the Regent's Park when it was first opened to the public:—

"Here shall the Spring its earliest coughs bestow,

Here the first noses of the year shall blow."

In this happy parody we have that "union of remote ideas," which is said, and said truly, to constitute the essence of wit. Even the most serious and religious works have been parodied, and by authors of the highest position. Thus Luther mimicked the language of the Bible, and both Cavaliers and Puritans railed at each other in Scriptural phraseology. The Church services and Litanies of both the Catholic, and Protestant Churches, have served in turn as originals for many bitter satires and lampoons, directed at one time against the Church and the priests, at another time in equally bitter invective against their opponents.

To undertake the composition of parodies, as the word is generally comprehended—that is, to make a close imitation of some particular poem, though it should be characteristic of the author—would be at times rather a flat business. Even the Brothers Smith in "Rejected Addresses," and Bon Gaultier in his "Ballads," admirable as they were, stuck almost too closely to their selected models; and Phœbe Carey, who has written some of the best American parodies, did the same thing. It is an evidence of a poet's distinct individuality, when he can be amusingly imitated. We can only make those the object of our imitations whose manner, or dialect, stamps itself so deeply into our minds that a new cast can be taken. But how could one imitate Robert Pollok's "Course of Time," or Young's "Night Thoughts," or Blair's "Grave," or any other of those masses of words, which are too ponderous for poetry, and much too respectable for absurdity! Either extreme will do for a parody, excellence or imbecility; but the original must at least have a distinct, pronounced character.

Certain well known poems are so frequently selected as models for parodies that it will only be possible to select a few from the best of them; to re-publish every parody that has appeared on Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," E. A. Poe's "The Raven," Hamlet's Soliloquy, or Longfellow's "Excelsior," would be a tedious, and almost endless task.

Prose parodies, though less numerous than those in verse, are often far more amusing, and it will be found that Dr. Johnson's ponderous sentences, Carlyle's rugged eloquence, and Dickens' playful humour and tender pathos, lend themselves admirably to parody.