A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms [Paperback]
Linda Hutcheon (Author)
Book Description
Publication Date: September 27, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0252069382 | ISBN-13: 978-0252069383
In this major study of a flexible and multifaceted mode of expression, Linda Hutcheon looks at works of modern literature, visual art, music, film, theater, and architecture to arrive at a comprehensive assessment of what parody is and what it does. Hutcheon identifies parody as one of the major forms of modern self-reflexivity, one that marks the intersection of invention and critique and offers an important mode of coming to terms with the texts and discourses of the past. Looking at works as diverse as Tom Stoppard’s “Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, Brian de Palma’s “Dressed to Kill”, Woody Allen’s “Zelig”, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Hymnen”, James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, and Magritte’s “This Is Not a Pipe”, Hutcheon discusses the remarkable range of intent in modern parody while distinguishing it from pastiche, burlesque, travesty, and satire.She shows how parody, through ironic playing with multiple conventions, combines creative expression with critical commentary. Its productive-creative approach to tradition results in a modern recoding that establishes difference at the heart of similarity. In a new introduction, Hutcheon discusses why parody continues to fascinate her and why it is commonly viewed as suspect – for being either too ideologically shifty or too much of a threat to the ownership of intellectual and creative property.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Linda Hutcheon’s thoughtful engagement with the theory of parody picks its way meticulously through this conceptual minefield, to emerge with a convincing map of the terrain… [A] scrupulously reasoned case made more persuasive by the tenacity with which its details have been pursued.” — Terence Hawkes, Times Literary Supplement
Product Details
Paperback: 168 pages
Publisher: University of Illinois Press (September 27, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0252069382
ISBN-13: 978-0252069383
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
Parody: Creation and Re-Creation at once December 28, 2000
By Rosana Mendes Campos
kalinin@terra.com.br
Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Parody is one of the most important theoretical books of the decade not only on parody but also on postmodernism. The dispute over the worth of postmodern art revolves around one of its most striking features, i.e. the outburst of intertextuality in the form of parody and pastiche. This proliferation of parody has been described as an exhaustion of creativity, appropriation of the property of others, borrowing, pirating, and cannibalisation; all of which descriptions are quite derogative. Parodists have, therefore, been considered minor artists, who take out their spite on acclaimed authors by ridiculing them. Linda Hutcheon’s views on parody are far more positive and allows us to analyse contemporary writers and give them their due worth. She claims that postmodern parody has changed in its essentials when it became an imitation with critical distance. It is a highly sophisticated genre and has come to be almost an autonomous literary form. It is, in fact, a form of literary criticism. According to her, parody is “repetition with critical distance;” it is “stylistic confrontation,” a modern re-coding which establishes “difference at the heart of similarity.” In short, in order for one to criticise any modern work of art, I believe that her theory becomes an essential tool, since it enables us to establish the relations between the work of art and all the included references, allusions and quotations, and moreover, to discover the evaluative judgement the author expresses on both the parodied texts and on his/her own text. Hutcheon’s theory on parody helps us understand better what happens to the quotation from a canonical text when it is transported into a postmodern text which uses fragmentation and irony to subvert the original meaning. Conversely, Parodies offer a dialogue and a re-evaluation of the past in the light of the present, and a critical view of present from the perspective of the past.
