Johnson speaks as though it originated with Philips. Notwithstanding
the great scope it affords for humorous invention, it has never become
popular, nor formed an important branch of literature; perhaps, because
the talent of the parodist always suffered from juxtaposition with that
of his original. In its widest sense parody is little more than
imitation, but as we should not recognise any resemblance without the
use of the same form, it always implies a similarity in words or style.
Sometimes the thoughts are also reproduced, but this is not sufficient,
and might merely constitute a summary or translation. The closer the
copy the better the parody, as where Pope's lines
"Here shall the spring its earliest sweets bestow
Here the first roses of the year shall blow,"
were applied by Catherine Fanshawe to the Regent's Park with a very
slight change--
"Here shall the spring its earliest coughs bestow,
Here the first noses of the year shall blow."
But all parody is not travesty, for a writing may be parodied without
being ridiculed. This was notably the case in the Centones,[1] Scripture
histories in the phraseology of Homer and Virgil, which were written by
the Christians in the fourth century, in order that they might be able
to teach at once classics and religion. From the pious object for which
they were first designed, they degenerated into fashionable exercises of
ingenuity, and thus we find the Emperor Valentinian composing some on
marriage, and requesting, or rather commanding Ausonius to contend with
him in such compositions.
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