CHAPTER IV
SATIRE, PARODY AND PASTICHE
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Chapter-IV
Satire, Parody and Pastiche
The aim of this chapter is to explore the nature of apprenticeship of A.J.M.
Smith and T.S. Eliot in evolving modem poetic and their use of satire, parody and
pastiche and to examine the dominant stylistic features such as satire, parody, pastiche
and other terms like wit, irony, ridicule, sarcasm, cynicism, etc. The argument of this
chapter is confined to the early poetry of A.J.M. Smith and T.S. Eliot. The main
purpose of this chapter is to study how A.J.M. Smith is influenced by T.S.Eliot in
using satire, parody and pastiche with a view to establishing Harold Bloom’s anxiety
of influence. It is interesting to note that Canada has produced a good number of
satirists in poetry such as a F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein, E.J. Pratt, Earle
Bimey, Raymond Souster, Alexander, McLachlan, Rebert Service, Archibald
Lampman, Irving Layton, etc. A.J.M. Smith and F.R. Scott produced an anthology of
Satire, Invective and Disrespectful Verse chiefly by Canadian Writers entitled The
Blasted Pine published in 1957. In their Introduction, F.R. Scott and A.J.M, Smith
observe that:
“Satire, invective, and disrespectful verse” describes accurately enough
what may seem to some readers a rather curious mixture of poetry,
doggerel, light verse, comic rhymes, and well aimed spitballs.
Traditionally, satire and invective are a method of exposing folly to the
ridicule of reasonable men and vice to the condemnation of virtuous
and responsible men. John Dryden put it well when he wrote ‘The true
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end of satire is the amendment of vice by correction’ (i.e. by
administration of the cane), but he added a necessary reminder when he
continued, he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender,
than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to
an inveterate disease, (xv)
The justification they gave for the appearance of such an anthology is:
But one of the most genuine sources of interest in a collection like this
is the opportunity it gives us of watching the operations of the critical
spirit throughout nearly a century and a half of our national
development.
There is in these pages a brief history of Canadian
thought: the poems expose an idea or a form of behaviour to public
ridicule, and at the same time assert the superiority of the alternative
view implied by the attach. For this reason the time of original
publication of each poem is important: opinions which today seem
dated or even quaint are of interest when they first appear in their
historical context (xvi-xvii).
In Canadian poetic modernism F.R. Scott and A.J.M. Smith forged a new
direction by making satire as a major component. To get a clear understanding of
satire it is essential to know the term satire, its origin and historical development. In
the opinion of Gilbert Highet, the word ‘Satire’ comes from the Latin word ‘Satura’
which means primarily ‘full’. Then it takes its meaning as ‘a mixture full of different
things’. Highet observes that:
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It seems to have been part of the vocabulary of food, we have the recipe
of a sort of salad called satura: a dish full of mixed first fruits offered to
the gods v^as called Lanx Satura and juvenal, no doubt, is allusion to
this strain of meaning calls his satires by the name of another mixed
food, farrage, a mismash of grain given good names: “farce” means
“stuffmg”, “macronic” poetry was a crude mixture of Latin and Italian
and so forth. (231)
Ennius is the first man who wrote poems first and called poems saturate,
‘medleys’. He and also known as Chances of Roman poetry. Before Envius, Romans
were enjoying something which is called Saturate. When he called his poems Saturae
he meant then not only a mixed dish of simple coarse ingredients but they grew out of
an improvised justification which was dramatic. Satire is such a protean form of art.
The word ‘Satire’, according to David Worcester, entered the English language in
1509. Since then its significance has greatly multiplied. Satire is mimicked and made
fun of people and their way and contained dialogue sung or spoken. All or most of
these elements are common in satire.
As satire is one of the most original, challenging and memorable forms it has
been practiced by some powerful minded writers like Voltaire, Rabelais, Petronius,
Swift; by some graceful stylists like Pope, Horace, Aristophanes and some great
geniuses like Lucretius, Goethe and Shakespeare.
Satire is described as a literary art. It diminishes and derogates a subject by
making it ridiculous and evokes the attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn or
indignation. Though it is different from comedy yet it evokes laughter mainly as an
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aim itself. It uses laughter as a weapon against the butt or the person who is ridiculed.
A butt may be an individual or a type of person or a class, an institution, a nation or
even the whole human race. The distinction one can see between comic and satiric
only when it is at its extremes.
Satire has been justified by those who practice it as a corrective of human vice
and folly. It claims that it has been to ridicule the failing and limits its ridicule the
faults which are capable of being corrected. It ridicules the fauhs of which a person is
responsible for the particular faults. So, it occurs as an identical element within
numerous activities of day-today society. Its primaiy organizing principle is an
attempt to diminish a subject by ridicule.
There are different types of satires, basically it is divided into two. One is
Direct or Formal satire, another is Indirect satire. The types are defined by the
character, attitude and the tone of a person. Besides that in direct or formal satire
there are two satires - Horatian satire, Juvenalian satire and in indirect satire there are
Menippean satire, and Varronian satire. Such types of satires are written in prose as
well as in verse.
A satire has three main shapes. Some are monologues. In these the satirists,
usually speaking either in his own person or behind a mask which is scarcely intended
to hide, addresses us directly. He states his view of a problem, cites examples,
pillories opponents and endeavours to impose his own views upon the public. Such is
juvenal, denouncing the traffic which makes big city life almost unlivable.
Again some are parodies. Here, the satirists take an purpose or a literary form
in which some respectable books and poems have been written. Then, he makes the
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work or the form look like ridiculous by infusing it with incongruous ideas or
exaggerating its aesthetic devices or he makes the ideas look foolish by putting them
into an inappropriate form or both.
The third main groups of satires contain neither mono nor parodies in which
his face wears a mask but narratives in which he generally does not appear at all.
Some of them are stories such as Candide others are dramatic fictions: staged satires
such as Troilus and Cressida. Narrative either as a drama seems to be the most
difficult type of satire. It is easy for the author to get wrong, hardest for the reader to
understand and to judge.
Good English satire has been written in eveiy period by beginning with middle
ages. The greatest number of recent satires are written in prose and novelistic form.
Among all the types the eighteenth century or the age of Restoration is the greatest
age of English or the world which produced big number of satires. The writers have
used satires in their works, namely Diyden, the Earl of Rochester, Samuel Butler,
Wycherly, Addison, Pope, Swift, Gay, Fielding, Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Rober
Bums, T.S. Eliot, etc. In France excellent satirists are Boileau, La Fontaine and
Voltaire as well as Moliere are the most eminent of all satirists in drama.
One can find that there are two main conceptions of the purpose of satire and
two different types of satirists. One type likes most people but thinks they are blind
and foolish.
He tells the truth with a smile.
He tries to cure or solve of their
ignorance which is their worst fault. Such we see in Horace of Greek. The other type
hates the most people or despises them. He believes rascality is triumphant in his
world. His aim is not to cure but to wound, to punish to destroy. Such is Juvenal.
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In addition to that there are two types of satirists. They are different in views
of the purpose of satire. One, the optimist writes in order to heat. Another, pessimist
writes in order to punish. That means one acts as a physician and the other acts as an
execution.
Dr. Johnson defines satire in his Dictionary o f English Language as ‘a poem in
which workedness or folly is censured’. But Dryden and Defoe go further and define
that ‘The true end of satire is reformation’ or ‘The true end of satire is the amendment
of vices’ what we can observe from these definitions is that both writers believe in the
reforming function of satire. That is true, the aim of satire is the reforming of the
society. This reforming aspect affirms his affinities with the traditional reforming
ideas of satire. But Swift has expressed some doubts with that. As quoted by Pollard
in his satire, Swift writes in the preface to The Battle o f the Books (1704)as:
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover
everybody’s face but their own which is the chief reason for that kind
of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended
with it.(2)
Later swift saw satire at his best but as a kind of moral policeman restraining
the righteous but helps against the wicked. Satire as healer and corrective gives way
to satire as punishment.
Satirist is the guardian of ideals. The best satire is that which is surest in its
values. It is always acutely consicious of the difference between what things are and
what they ought to be.
Satirist socially and morally performs a useful task of
universal validity. But he has to be very careful because he needs to known what he
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can convince his audience of as being important. But in one respect he has extensive
freedom. He does not labour under any moral restraint for the variety of satire is
almost infinite. In his satire, Arthhur Pollard points to the observation made by A
Melville Clark who confining himself to what he calls regular verse satire:
It swings bacicwards and forwards on an eclipse about the two foci of
the satiric universe, the exposure of folly and the castigation of vice: it
fluctuates between the flippant and the earnest, the completely trivial
and heavily didactic: it ranges from extremes of crudity and brutality to
the utmost refinement and elegance: it employs singly or conjunctions,
monologue dialogue, epistle, oration, narrative, maimers painting,
character drawing, allegory, fantasy, travesty, burlesque, parody and
any other vehicle it chooses: and it presents a chameleon like surface
by using all the tones of the satiric spectrum, wit, ridicule, irony,
sarcasm, cynicism, the sardonic and invective (5),
In order to have a clear understanding of the term ‘Satire’ it is essential to
know the distinctions between the satire and the comic. Irony in Clark’s list is a tone
of satire, and there is satiric irony. There is also satiric comedy. It is just another
reminder that satire is not itself a pure and exclusive form. But there was a thought
that comedy and irony are not satiric. Comedy is more dangerous and irony is more
serious than satire. Such comedy makes fun but accepts, it criticizes but appreciates.
It laughs at but also laughs with its butt. Shakespeare’s Falstaff is such a comedy.
Irony is more serious than satire knows no bounds short of mechancholia and
madness. Its seriousness loses perspective. It is marked by ferocity and gloom.
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In satire, subject plays a significant role. It must be worthwhile. It should
encompass one or more of the central areas of man’s experience. To write good
satire, he must describe, decry, denounce here and now. The subject matter is
multifarious. But its vocabulary and the texture of its style difficult to maintain and
although sometimes used in other types of literature are most concentrated and
effective in satire. Most satiric writing contains cruel and dirty words and sometimes
they contain colloquial anti literary words. Hence, all good satires are eminently
various. Latin word Satura means ‘medley’, hotch potch and the best satirists have
either known this or divined it. In plot, in discourse, in emotional tone, in vocabulaiy,
in sentence-structure and pattern of phrase, the satirist tries always to produce the
unexpected, to keep his hearers and readers guessing and gasping.
Satire is essentially a social mode. It has nothing in it of the transcendental.
The experiences of love and death are in their essential magnificence beyond the
reach of satire. In comedy and tragedy they may be celebrated and exalted. However,
Satire does not exalt but it deflates.
Arthur Pollard refers to the observation made by Ian Jack; “Satire is bom of
the instinct to protest: it is protest become art”. The satirist looks around him and
cannot help himself. For example. Swift has mentioned about death in his Venus on
the Death o f Dr. Swift. Here death is real occasion. The real subject is the reception of
the news of his death. Here Swift has used the solemnity of death to criticize the
superficialities in living.
Pollard points out that Johnson’s Vanity o f Human W i s h e s in Gray’s
phrase that “The paths of glory lead but to the grave”. In that Johnson’s is a moral
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satire as in example after example he shows the fiitility of human ambition. Satire is
one of the means of relief necessary for us to go on facing problems of the highest
import. Satire is employed either directly or indirectly associated with serious subjects
which depend on the relationship of an author to his audience. An author may wish to
outrage his audience to ridicule their seriousness.
Shakespeare’s satire is occasional but often intense. His satire finds its more
characteristic role. But he does not write satirical plays and the dramatic relevance of
his speeches is so direct and concentrated that the satirical importance is often
subsidiary. In some ways, the less importance of a character is more evident in the
satire.
The ftmction of satire is to conft-ont us with a thing and to say ‘it is not what it
seems’. This is efficiently and thoroughly done by Swift. In fact the realism makes
people to forget it. The satirists do not confine themselves to the sexual behaviour of
woman. The other foibles of them attract them. He is primarily concerned with the
attitude of the people. When the people go out of proportion, the satirist must correct
him and keep us to sanity by making us able to enjoy even his anger. His correction
may involve a compensating disproportion but provided that it is not extreme. We see
its purpose and appreciates satire’s effect. Thus, we can see the satirist’s ftmction.
When we turn to the modes of satire we find that there are as various as its
subjects. Few are the literary forms that cannot accommodate even touch of satire.
Satire is not only a chameleon adapting itself to its environment but it is capable of
metamorphosis, masquerading by parody. The satire occurs in verse as well as in
prose in number of times particularly in the drama of Congreve, Shaw and Wilde, in
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the works of the novelists. Fielding, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Meredith and
among lesser writers Peacock, Evelyn Waugh, Huxley and Orwell. Pollard opines
that the novelist must do because it demands the point concisely. Whereas the
dramatist should also be very careful. Because there are many ways of emergence of
satire. In Aristotelian term we have more ways in drama by which the satire meaning
may emerge, namely, by what a man does by what others do it and say of him, by
what he says of himself, and in the novel by what the author says of him.
Satire illustrates the danger of making an imaginative creation subservient to
an intellectual or moral purpose. This is always danger for the satirist.
He is
constantly required to maintain a fine balance between literature and life. When he
fails he can so easily decline into a mere preacher or moralist.
The satire is pervasive in novels like Tom Jones and Vanity Fair because they
are satiric novels. There are other novels in which the satire is established through the
form that the novel takes or imitates. The allegory is employed to their originals to
emphasize their own real satiric object. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels illustrates the form
of allegory, the imaginary journey. In the beginning it displays another satiric device.
Besides that satire often uses epic. At the most elevated of literary forms epic offers
ample scope for the distorted of satire either by direct deflation or by oblique mockexaltation. Both of those modes are forms of burlesque. Don Quixote is a burlesque of
chivalric romance. Hudibras of Butler is a good example of low burlesque.
The mode of mock heroic is not simple parody. Parody concentrates on
exaggerating the model itself. Mock-heroic uses its model to satirize something else
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by means of comparison and it possesses considerable freedom in the closeness or
otherwise of the comparison. It always exaggerates to deflate.
Dryden in his “MacFlecknoe” takes an epic event, a coronation as his subject
and he describes it in an appropriate language.
The poem begins the note of
moralistic satire. As Pollard Quotes;
All human things are subject to decay
And when fate summons, monarches must obey. (42)
Dryden’s satire is crude in tone by comparison. The extent of satiric
magnification by mock-heroic device varies from place to place. Sometimes indeed,
he appears to leave the epic connexion for more direct satire. It is known that satire
basically about some people. There must be some characterization. Dryden’s
character drew on a more definite mode. English satire began with belief in a rough
measure. The minute change of reference is crucial in satire. It may be a popular
allusion employed in an unconventional way, as when Eliot makes the telling contrast
between the Elizabethan Thames of Spenser’s Prothalamion and the river of today.
Satiric effect by reduction can also be achieved by the insertion of colloquialisms.
This is clearly illustrated in the speech of Sir Plume in The Rape o f the Lock.
The imagery of satire is various. It is always disparaging. It seems that it is
meant to be read in either distorted or inverted mode. Because it is denigrator. It will
often take for comparison of the trivial or worse, the ugly and repulsive.
Tone in satire also plays a major role. Here we can see the terms such as wit,
ridicule, irony, sarcasm, cynicism, the sardonic and invective. All these hurt because
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the aim of the satire is to hurt. His competence lies not in his ability to perform the
job but it is in the skill he uses in doing satire.
Wit wounds with a neat and unexpected stroke. Its exponent mentally needs all
the grace, speed and dexterity of the fencer. Like wit, ridicule should be good
tempered.
It is essentially a laughing satire. This places certain distortion as its
weapon, total distortion in the form of inversion. It is not simply inversion either. It
includes in its effect implication, insinuations and omission. It requires a select and
responsive audience to recognize its peculiar direction of meaning.
Sarcasm is irony without the mystery and the refinement. It is essentially
incidental and verbal. It is also cruder than irony, a much blunter instrument. It is
lacking in generosity. It has been called the lowest form of wit. Arther Pollard Says:
‘Cynicism and the sardonic are closely related. Both of them issue from a deep sense
of disillusion and the two often occur in close relationship’.(69) The sardonic would
rather weep than laugh. The sardonic is on the edge of deeping because it is on the
edge of untouchable anger. That is why its laughter is so bitter. Pollard refers to the
observation made by Melville Clark that; “The laughter of the cynic is edged with
contempt, but sardonic laughter is blunted with chagrin and mortification”.(70)
To get a clear understanding of satire it is necessary to understand the
relationship between the satirist and the reader. Satire always has a victim and it
always criticizes. The satirists acts in this way because his first task is to convince his
audience of the worth of the necessity of what he is doing. At any rate satirist must
convince his readers as to what he says. In his mischievous private role the satirist
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must carry his reader by the guidance or virtuously of his art. That is why, Pollard
puts forward the argument of steel that:
The need for good nature as an ‘essential quality in a satirist’, because
‘the ordinary subjects for satire are such as mcite the greatest
indignation in the best tempers. (74)
Though the satirist is abnormally sensitive, disillusioned, alienated, prejudiced
yet he must have the best hope of success. He must appear detached, well-balanced,
judicious and capable of being bitter natural than he seems. His main aim is to move
his readers to criticize and condemn, and he expects to do so by moving them to
various emotions raging from laughter through evidence, contempt and anger to hate.
The reader must be persuaded without overcoming an unwillingness to criticize. He
realizes that he is taking pleasure in criticizing at another discomfort but he is also
assuming his ovm superiority or congratulating himself on his escape.
After discussing the concept of satire, its definition, origin, development and
nature it is better to know how the concept of satire is used in A.J.M. Smith’s poetiy
particularly in the early poems of T.S. Eliot and A.J.M. Smith. A.J.M. Smith’s satire
is social. As a satirist he shows us familiar things such as social issues and literary
styles etc., in a new way. His innovative ideas make his satire successful, but the
manner of his expression, the satire manner, which makes him entertaining and
interesting. He wrote satire in which he adhered to classical form by means of his
adherences to establish convention of form and content. But one striking feature we
notice in his method of satiric writing is that the scope and range of satire extends
beyond the literary towards the social and cultural. Although his satire deals with
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social issues, it comes closer to formal satire. He wrote many satires such as ‘A
Hyacinth for Edith’, ‘A Dream of Narcissus’, ‘Ballade un Peu Banale’, ‘The
Hippopotamus’, ‘Noctambule’, ‘A Portrait, and Prophecy’, ‘On Reading an
Anthology of Popular Poetry’ and ‘Son and Heir 1930’ in fixed stanzaic forms and
meters.
We find in his satire sarcasm, ridicule, didactic instruction, irony, sharp
parody and various styles varying with each other. But what is significant is that we
find a medley of styles.
Smith uses satiric style without any restraint and in this context it becomes
relevant to examine Smith’s satiric style, especially the camivalesque nature of
parody and pastiche in Smith’s satire. Coming to the dialogic and heteroglossic
character of Smith’s satire, it is clear that some of Bakhtin’s terms like ‘dialogism’,
‘heteroglossia’ and ‘camivalesque’ are daunting. But a clear understanding of these
terms will be of real help in discussion of the satiric style of Smith. In his essay
“Dialogics: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”. David Murray says:
On the most general level it (diologism) is a description of language
and its operation as a social and shared act. An individual utterance,
like the language of a particular group, is inevitably capable of being
dialogized, made provisional, shown to be one part of the social whole,
by an increased awareness of the part played by the unheard voices
which make up the whole and, therefore, implicitly shape the
utterance” (121-122).
Murray’s observation has three significant points; First, dialogism as a social
and shared act: Second, the potential for dialogization of an individual utterance:
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Third, the vital role played by the unheard hetero-voices in the act of dialogization.
On one level, dialogism can be understood as a form of friendly and polite
communication in which a difference of opinion is acknowledged as unreasonable.
But it is yet reconciled to the extent that each speaker and the supposed listener or
reader takes into account the opinions of the other. It is in this sense that one can find
the dialogic principle in Smith’s satire in the poem.
The early satirical tone of T.S. Eliot's “The Hippopotamus” can be discerned
in Smith’s “The Hippopotamus”. The influence of T.S. Eliot is direct though Smith
also acknowledged the influence of John Dryden, Alexander Pope in the introduction
to The Blasted Pine. Smith follows the same metrical structure, rhyme scheme and
the stanzaic pattern of Eliot’s “The Hippopotamus” in his of the same title. Eliot in
his poem satirises the condition of a church in modem times. He compares the
Hippopotamus with the church. He says:
The broad - backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud:
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood (49).
In the same manner Smith opens in his poem “The Hippopotamus” as:
The hippo with his massive gut
Frequents the jingle - land of Java:
More monsters than you’d dream of root
In caves or grots of lime or lava (82)
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Smith’s satire is fundamentally on the convictions of man. Though he looks strong the
hippo is not afraid of man. Smith says;
He fears no kris or pointed staff;
He looks on man without chagrin;
The huntsman’s balls just make him laugh;
They bounce against his leather skin (82)
Smith’s satire is on the pseudo-conviction of man. The satire is as settle as T.S.
Eliot’s satire on the ‘True Church’. It’s not just a satire as Smith imitates Eliot’s style
and mannerism of language. It can also be described as a parodic satire.
As F.R. Scott satirizes the meetings of the Canadian authors and their
paraphernalia in his much anthologiged poem “The Canadian Authors Meet”. Smith
satirises poetry reading sessions in his poem “On reading an Anthology of Popular
Poetry”. There is a satirical vein in following lines:
Cries from the stitched heart
In soft melodious screams
The sweet sweet songs that start\
Out of alluvial dreams?
The old eternal frog
In the throat that comes
With the words, mother, sweetheart dog
Excites, and then numbs (97)
This is a social satire with a subtle sense of ridicule.
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As is mentiontioned earlier that Smith was also influenced by Alexander Pope.
His poem “Ode to Good Form” published in The Blasted Pine written under the direct
influence of Pope. The man of good form according to Smith is:
Happy indeed, to take what he can get
Without the loss of Honour, or of Sweat
Catholic, his state, he’s Anglican in this:
He only hates two things - Extremites:
With equal Moderation he deplores
Unused Virgins and ill-used whores
And with an even mind seeks out the shade
To take Nap, a Cocktail or a maid (204)
Here, in the first two lines we find the typical Pope’s bathos. It is a social satire on a
man of good form which is ironical.
Smith’s ‘The common man’ reminds us of W.H. Auden’s ‘The Unknown
Citizen’ which is a satire on every common citizen. Smith says of the common man
as:
A jittery clerk with a slippery pen
Condemned him to limbo, a headless hen
Gyrating about in a blood stained pen.
He lived by luck and a sense of touch
These were his two gifts and they were not too much
One was a blank patch and the other a crutch (126).
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In the tercets of the poem he presented the portrait of a common man with sarcasm
though we wrote many satirical poems on social and political life of Canada we find a
cold detachment in his satirical poems.
Smith’s satires are dialogic and heteroglossic. He is a distinguished poet in
handling of ‘carnival’. Let us refer to Bakhtin for a clear understanding of the term
‘carnival’. Bakhtin devides language into two parts like official and unofficial
according to high and low cultures.
He identifies ‘centripetal’ language with
monologism and ‘centrifugal’ language with dialogism. We can have several version
of language in dialogics contesting within a culture. The unofficial or the ‘centrifugal’
language of the low culture overturns the unitary or the official language of the high
culture. This kind of overturning of the official language Bakhtin calls
‘camivalization’. He writes: A boundless words of humorous forms ... opposed the
official and serious tone of medieval and ecclesiastical and feudal culture.(299-300)
In the opinion of Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist that three such humorous
forms are the following: open air spectacles, parodies and various genres of
billigerate, curves, and oaths: and it is possible to find the element of carnival
throughout Smith’s parodies and pastiches.
The satiric style of Smith is generally a mixture of the high and low, the sacred
and profane. The element ‘carnival’ brings together and combines the sacred and
profane, the lofty with the low, the great with the insignificant. The importance of this
is that Bakhtin celebrated carnival as an impulse towards quality and freedom. In his
view carnival aspires to erase the powerful and authoritative to level out social and
aesthetic hierarchies. Smith’s use of parody and pastiche in his satires subverts the
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unitary or singular nature of the regenomic or officinl language of high genres.
Eventhough Smith writes “Ode to Good form” (56) in heroic couplets by imitating
Pope’s model in The Rape o f the Lock, he uses low language in it, for example words
such as ‘unused virgin’ and ‘ill-used whores’. He also uses archaisms and colloquial
terms without adhering to any particular style, showing that satiric style does not
allow any particular sub-genre to become unitary and singular. Even when Smith
follows the satirical style of Pope, his imitation is not mere following: it is not
monologic mastery of another’s style. It is rather a dialogic, parodic re-appropriation
of the past: the two textual voices iroic and parodic combine dialogically, rendering
Smith’s satiric style more fluid than all his other styles. However, his adherence to a
kind of satiric style which is dialogic and camivalesque in some of his poems can
look like a stylization taken to the point of parody and pastiche: the comic and ironic,
inverted world of the carnival exists in opposition to official, serious, ecclesiastical
culture can be seen in Smith’s P. according to Bakhlein.
The aspect of the overturning of ecclesiastical culture can be seen in Smith’s
poem “Ballade un pue banale”, a poem which contains sexual connotations. In the
poem Smith describes the chasing of a ‘gentil cow’ in profane language by good
Master Bull. The Master Bull makes advances to the cow and
He stampeth with his foremost foot.
His nostrils breathing bale:
Uncouth, unhallowed in his suit:
The vestal tumeth tail
He feinteth with his ivory horn,
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Bites rump, bites flank, bites napeSweet saviour of virgin bom,
How shall this maid escape! (80-81)
In the poem the religious and sexual inversions are typically camivalesque: the
religion of the spirit gives way to a religion of the flesh, complex with its own sexual
connotations and religious references.
The official ecclesiastical discourse
(specifically with Biblical reference to ‘Jesus Christ’ in the eight stanza) in
parodically inverted by use of language which has sexual connotations. There is a
specific and wholesale transfer from the elevated, spiritual plane to the bodily and
sexual connotations.
In Smith’s pastiche ‘Souvenir Du Temps Perdu’ (101) one can find
camivalization of the styles of high Modernism, particularly the styles of T.S. Eliot
and W.B. Yeats. In the case of Smith the intention to imitate the styles of Eliot and
Yeats is a subversion of the hegemonic styles they used. The style which Eliot
adapted in the_7%e fVaste Land has become hegemonic and the style which Yeats
adapted in his poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ has become aesthetic. In the poem
“Souvenir Du Temps Perdu” Smith seems to be canivilizing their styles. He takes up
a light-hearted subject in his poem as against the serious subject of Eliot’s The Waste
Land. Smith’s subject is drinking, and the tone of the poem is comic and light­
hearted.
I will arise and go now
And go to the lavabo
Where men without women
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Are standing in a row (101)
The line “I will arise and go now” is an imitative of the lines of Yeats’ “The Lake Isle
of Innisfree”. But Smith uses this for a light - hearted subject whereas Yeats used for
an aesthetic subject, or consider Smith’s lines:
God I will rise and take train
and get me to April once again
For April is the cruelest nymph
scattering garters and spent stage
On an unmade bed in a one room head. (101)
As pointed out above, these lines are imitative of the evening of ‘the burial of
the dead’ in Eliot’s The Waste Land. But again, Eliot was dealing with serious subject
in that section of The Waste Land, whereas Smith’s intention in imitating Eliot’s style
in his comic poem is nothing but a camivalization of the serious styles of high
modernism. The incorporation of comic subject and lower registers into the style of
high modernism or into the unitary or singular language of modem culture is a radical
move. In the sense that this kind of incorporation of the comic into the serious will
not allow the language to preserve its apparent stratification. This kind of style in
parody and pastiche becomes fluid and it enables to deal with any kind of subject or
style refusing itself any kind of singular position or hegemony.
In dealing with the satiric style of Smith an attempt is made to show satire
precisely as a genre in the making one of the vanguard of modernist literary
development. Smith as an academic deals with theoretical poetics giving greater
importance of metre, rhyme and rhythm.
Smith is not unconcerned with social
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problems, but his interest is shifted away from society towards the literary styles of
Eliot and Yeats, focusing his interest in the camivalization of the unitary languages of
high modernism. Though Smith wrote poems in satiric style, his style took different
directions depending on his interests and involvements with the social structures, life
system and literary taste and preferences. Here also it is clear Bloom’s aspect of
influence ‘Clinamen’ is evident in the satirical poems of Smith.
Parody:
Like satire. Parody also occupies singular importance in modem poetry both in
British and Canada. This chapter also examines the implications of parodic mode in
the modem artistic practice. Parody is undoubtedly one of the major forms of formal
and thematic construction of texts. The hermeneutic function of parodic culture and
ideological implication will be examined. A close study of Smith’s and Eliot’s poetry
clearly shows that they are good practitioners of parodic mode. The parodic mode in
modem poetry will be discussed against the backgroimd of Bloomian theory of
‘anxiety of influence’. Before going to that an attempt is made to understand the
concept of parody and its origin and development.
The term ‘Parody’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Paroidia’ which means
burlesque poem. Further, it means a burlesque or satirical imitation, an imitation so
poor as to seem a deliberate mockery of the original. In literary point of view, it is a
humorously exaggerated imitation of an author, literary work, style etc, M.H. Abrams
in his .(4 Glossary o f Literary Terms, says:
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A parody imitates tlie serious manner and characteristic of a particular
work, or the distinctive style of a particular author, or the typical
stylistic and other features of a serious literary genre, and applies the
imitation to a lowly or comically inappropriate subject. (18)
Parody ridicules a literary work or the characteristic style of an author or writer by
treating the subject matter flippantly or by applying the style to an inappropriate,
usually trivial subject.
Linda Hutcheon in her book A Theory o f Parody opines that ‘Parody is one of
the major modes of formal and thematic construction of texts’. Further, she observes
that being a modem artistic practice it has a hermeneutic function with both cultural
and even ideological implications. It is one of the major modes of modem selfreflexivity and it is a form of inter-art discourse.
Parody has been called parasitic and derivative. It was the philistine enemy of
creative genies and vital originality. It is one mode of coming to terms with the texts
of that rich and intimidating legacy of the past. It is overtuming of other art forms
implicitly contests Romantic singularity and thereby force a reassessment of the
process of textural production.
The auto reflexivity of the modem art forms often takes the form of parody. It
provides a new model for artistic process. It is clear by Linda Hutcheon that ‘Parody
is not a ridiculing imitation mentioned in the standard dictionary definition’. The
challenge to this limitation of its original meaning is one of the lessons of modem art.
Linda Hutcheon says that “Parody is the minimal transformation of a text” and she
further sees “Parody as a formal or stmctural relation between two texts”. But
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Tzvetan Todorov opines “Parody was a form of passive, divergent, diphonic a
represented discourse for Bakhten”.
There are several definitions of parody for example Northrop Frye feels that
parody is “often a sign that certain vogues in handling conventions are getting worn
out”. As quoted by Lina Hutcheon in her A Theory o f Parody. Kiremidjan defines
parody as:
a work which reflects a fundamental aspect of art that is at the same
time a symptom of historical processes which invalidate the normal
authenticity of primary forms. (36 )
The imitation with critical difference prevents any endorsement of the ameliorative
implications of the formalists. He further writes with regarding the existence and
significance of parodic forms in the art of the twentieth century.
The widespread presence of Parody suggests a greater importance in
the very ways in which modem imagination and modem sensibility
have been formed, and also suggests the organic function it has had in
the development of the primary modes of expression for perhaps the
past one hundred years (28).
Samuel Johnson in his A Dictionary o f the English Language (1755), defined parody
as:
A kind of writing, in which the words of the author or his thoughts are taken
and by a slight change adapted to some new purpose. (26 )
Susan Stewart’s definition of parody consists of
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Substituting elements within a dimension of a given text in such a way
that the resulting that stands in an inverse or incongruoces relation to
the borrowed text (185).
Linda Hutcheon expresses that parody expresses certain common denominators of all
the theories of parody for all the ages but it is also essential to deal with modem
parodic art. Parody is to pastiche as rhetorical type is to cliche. Both parody and
pastiche are not only formal textural imitations but they clearly involve this issue of
intent. Both are acknowledged borrowings. A parody in pastiche can ease the
decoder’s interpretative task.
Bakhtin defines parody as “a form of indirect discourse as referring to other
forms” (55). Margaret Rose defines parody as “the critical quotation of preformed
literaiy language with comic effect” (59). In the opinion of Michel Butor, ‘Transcontextualized’ repetition is certainly a feature of parody.
Parody has a stronger bi-textual determination than does simple quotation or
even allusion. It partakes of both the code of a particular text parodied and also of the
parodic generic code in general. It is also often a more extended form of trans-textual
reference in modem age. But the above definition parody is repetition but repetition
that includes difference. It is imitation with critical ironic distance whose irony can
cut both ways. Ironic version of ‘transcontextualiztion’ and ‘inversion’ are its major
formal operatives and the range of pragmatic ethos is from scornful to reverential
homage.
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Parody is related to burlesque, travesty pastiche, plagiarism, quotation and
allusion but it remains distinct from them. It shares with them a restriction forces and
its repetition and always of another discursive text.
As quoted by Hutcheon Winfried Treund observes that ‘satire aims at the
restoration of positive values while parody can only operate negatively’. Parody is
not extramural in its aim. Satire frequently uses parody’s art forms for either
expository or aggressive purposes. But satire and parody imply critical distancing.
Austen used parody as an effective literaiy vehicle for social satire.
Hutcheon defined the term parody in a semiotic term. It is an alleged
representation of a literary text or other artistic object i.e., a representation of modeled
reality which is itself already a particular representation of an original reality. The
parodic representation express the model’s conventions and lays bare its devices
through the existence of the two codes in the same message.
When we think from the point of view of pragmatic terms most studies of
parody argue that it is a more restricted form than allusion or quotation. For Gary
Saul Morson parody is:
... intended to have higher semantic authority than its original and that
the decoder is always sure of which voice he or she is expected to argue
with. While the lather might be true. We have seen that the target of
parody is not always the parodied text at all especially in the 20*
century art forms. (50)
Theodor Verweyen observes that there are two categories of parody. They are
defined in terms of their critical function. So the concept of ridicule is conmion in
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both the views. But even as a department of pure criticism parody excercises a
conservative function. For others, parody is a form of serious criticism though its bite
is still achieved through ridicule. As a form of criticism, parody has the advantage of
being both a recreation and creation, making criticism, parody has the advantage of
being both a recreation and creation, making criticism into a kind of action of active
exploration of form.
Hutcheon considers parody as not just a formal entity but it as a structure of
assimilation or appropriation of other texts. It is neither just the intricate textual
interaction of parody or the ignoring of the difference in the kind of target to blame all
the time. But parody not only differentiates itself from satire but also from those
traditional definitions that demand the inclusion of the intent to ridicule.
Parody is an important mode modem artists to come to terms with the past
through ironic recoding or trans contextualizing. Its historical antecedents are the
classical and remaissance practices of imitation with some difference and distance
from the original text or set of conventions. Since Linda Hutcheon has defined present
day parody as repetition with difference she has placed it within an entire post
structuralist debate on the nature of repetition. It can be both conservative and
transformative both ‘mystificatory’ and critical. Paradoxically, parody is an
authorized transgression by nature.
It cannot be accounted for only in terms of
difference. It is both textual doubling and differentiation. It manages to inscribe
continuity while permitting critical distance and change. Hutcheon opines that parody
is a conscious raising device, preventing the acceptance of the narrow dogmatic views
of any particular ideological group.
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Parody is one of the major forms of modem self-reflexivity. It is a form of
inter-art discourse. Hutcheon believes that any consideration of modem parody at the
theoretical level must be govemed by the nature and ftmction of its manifestations in
actual works of art.
It is observed that sometimes parody must need to be considered at best a very
different, turning to the text. We have witnessed a renewed interest in questions of
textural appropriation and even influence. Now we see influence as a burden (Bate
1970) or a cause of anxiety (Bloom 1973). Parody is one mode of coming to terms
with the text of that a rich and intimidating legacy of the past (Bate 1970). Its
overtuming to other art forms implicity consists romantic singularity and thereby
forces a reassessment of the process of textual production.
For Ben Jonson, it is clear that imitation of previous works was considered
part of the labour of writing poetry. It will be clear by what Linda Hutcheon calls
parody that it is not reducing imitation mentioned in the standard dictionary
definition. The challenge to this limitation of its original meaning, as suggested by the
etymology and history of the term, is one of the lessons of modem art that must be
heeded in any attempt to work out a theory of parody that is adequate to it.
Parody is a form of imitation but imitation characterized by ironic inversion,
not always at the expense of parodied text.
In another formulation, parody is
repetition with critical distance which marks difference rather than similarity. In this
it gives beyond more allusive variation which echoes past works in order to barrow a
context and to evoke an atmosphere. Hutcheon points out the observation made by
Greene:
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Eveiy creative imitation mingles filial rejection with respect, just as
every parody says its own oblique homage (46).
Parody can be a whole range of things. It can be a serious criticism, not
necessarily of the parodied text: it can be a playfem, genial mockery of codifiable
forms. Its range of intent is from respectful admiration to biting ridicule.
It is
necessary to expand the concept of parody to include the extended ‘re-functioning’ it
is characteristic of the art which we need to restrict its focus in the sense that parody
targets. Text is always another work of art or more generally another form of coded
discourse. Parody can be used to satirize the reception or even the creation of certain
kinds of art.
Parody often becomes synonymous with all texture mirroring or misce-enabyme structures. It is certainly a mode of auto-referentiality. In this aspect Margaret
Rose sees parody as part of a relationship of art reality rather than one of art to art.
Linda Hutcheon sees parody as operating as a method of inscribing continuity while
permiting critical distance. In fact it can function as a conservative force in both
retaining and mocking other aesthetic forms but it is also capable of transformative
power in creating new synthesis.
The distinction between parody and plagiarism is necessary to have a clear
meaning of parody. Because they have been used as synonyms, we know that parody
means imitation of an author or literary work or style. But plagiarism means taking or
using the thoughts, invention, ideas, technique etc. of other as if their own.
Parody is one of the techniques of self-refentiality by which art reveals it
awareness of the context-dependent nature of meaning of the important to
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signification of the circumstances surrounding any utterance.
But any discursive
situation is not just a parodic one it includes an enunciating addresser and encoder as
well as a receiver of the text. It is frequently joined to manipulative narrative voices.
There is no doubt that parody can act as a kind of badge of learning for both encoders
and decoders. It works towards maintaining cultural continuity. But one could also
argue that parody makes possible change even radical change.
Parody being a much twentieth century art form it is considerable more
thematic and formal structuring involving what Hutcheon earlier called ‘integrating
modeling process’. It is one of the most frequent forms taken by textural self­
reflexibility in our century. It marks the intersection of creation and recreation of
invention and critique. Parody;
...is to be understood as a mode of aesthetic foregrounding in the
novel. It defines a particular form of historical consciousness, whereby
form is created to interrogate itself against significant precedents: it is a
serious mode. (101).
It is this ‘historical consciousness’ of parody that gives it the potential power both to
bury the dead, so to speak, and also to give it the potential new life.
Then it is considered that parody is an important way for modem artists to
come to terms with the past through ironic decoding or tra-contextualizing. It is
historical antecedents are the classical and renaissance practices of imitation though
with more stress on difference from the original text or set of conventions.
Today, Parody is endowed with the power to renew but it can as it has the
hybrid nature of parody’s connection with the ‘world’, the mixture of conservative
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and revolutionary impulses in both aesthetic and social terms. Jonathan Culler in his
book Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism Linguistics and the Study o f Literature
observes that the essential spirit of parody as;
I see how this poem works; look at how easy it is to show up the
sententiousness of this poem: its effects are imitable and hence
artificial: its achievement is fragile and depends on conventions of
reading being taken seriously (153).
In other words, it looks to the didactic parodic texts of modem art that we can cover
the true spirit of parody. That is why ‘theory of parody’ is derived from the teachings
of the texts themselves. Today parody cannot be explained in structuralist terms of
form, in the hermeneutic context of response. Yet the complex determinants of parody
in some way involve all these current critical perspectives. In this way parody can
serve another useful function today. It can call into question the temptation toward the
monolithic in modem theory. Totally it is a plea for theory that is responsible to
aesthetic realistic.
Gilbert Highet thinks that parody is one of the most delightful forms of satire.
One of the most natural, perhaps the most satisfying and often the most effective. It
springs from the very heart of our sense of comedy which is the happy perception of
incongmity. It is not simply invitation. The mocking bird not a mocker: he imitates
the songs of other birds through honest pleasure in their beauty and in his own agility.
If it wounds the original by pointing out faults, revealing hidden affectation,
emphasizing weakness and diminishing strengths it is known as satiric parody. When
he exaggerates the faults and underscores the foibles of his victim, so that audience
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sees something ridiculous or contemptible or hateful: in the character of the person
mimicked and laughs with a certain malicious delight and thereafter admires the
originals a little less than it did before seeing that cruel portrait. Then the act is
parody. So parody is one of the chief shapes which satires assumes. We may define it
as imitation through distortion and exaggeration evokes amusement, derision and
sometimes scorn.
There are two types of parody. One is formal and the other is material. When
we think of parody we are apt to think first of all of an external resemblance between
the original and its parodic copy. Yet there are other satiric parodies in which form is
maintained virtually unaltered without exaggeration without distinction. The thought
is made hideously inappropriate to the form or inwardly distorted or comically
expanded. These might be called material parodies. So parody is the distortion and
exaggeration, the brutal frankness and the unctuous hypocrisy which mould its
thought. It always coincides with reality. Indeed some of the best material parodies
are which might by the unwaiy, he accepted as genuine work of the original author or
style parodied. In that sense many of the finest political and religious satires are
material parodies. The preserve the original form the most inviolate and merely
distort the content a little usually making it fi*anker and more realistic.
When we come to the literary forms of parody satirists have taken all the
famous patterns of literature and distorted them. The most important have naturally
evoked the most energetic and penetrating parodies.
We must be careful to
differentiate two principal methods of satirizing serious literary forms such as epic,
drama and romance. One is called mock-heroic and the other is burlesque. Generally,
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the mock-heroic is parodic pretends as if it is very serious. Its vocabulary is grand,
delicate. Its style is lofty, full of fine rhetorical devices and subtle images. If he
speaks in prose sentences which were long and orotund, he uses a dignified meter in
poetry. The writer of the burlesque in prose and poetry like a simple colloquial style,
avoids solemn rhetorics. His sentences are short and easy. His poetry is often like
prose and his prose in like conversations. He tells the plain unvarnished truth. The
mock-heroic parodist pretends to be sublime. Burlesque toddles or limps or quarts.
The burlesquer, if he borrows fi-om serious literature, debases his borrowing by
translating it into lighter rhythms and coarse phrases. In burlesque all super natural
figures are made ‘human’ ail too human talk coarsely, behave radically, act
ineffectively and absurdly.
A mock-heroic parody is like a laughing child or grinning dwarf wearing a full
scale suit of majestic armor. He is very strong enough to accomplish bold deed of
daring, but we will not behave generally he has no style, no inner harmony no needs.
Whatever he attempts will be graceless and absurd. In both senses he is a clown.
Many successful satires have been couched in the form of epic parody. We
can find parody in all types of literary works like Mock-epic, Epic, Romance, Drama,
Didactic poetry, Lyric etc. For example, Virgil started his poetic career with a few
light lyrics, some in imitation and at least one in parody of catuilus. In the middle
ages parody of serious lyrical poetry was one of the commonest forms of satire. In
general a perfect parody touches both style and content.
The poems of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and other modems have been frequently
parodied. Eliot has rarely been parodied with much success. He himself says in
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characteristic tones, ‘One is apt to think one could parody oneself much better (As a
matter of fact some critics have said that I have done so). But he had praise for one
parody of his own work. Chard Whitlow by Henry Reed.
As we get older we do not get any younger Seasons return, and today I
am fifty five ...(136).
Lionel Kearns in his “Review of A.J.M. Smith’s Poems New and Collected”
observes that:
Smith used parody (a form of criticism) in many of his poems, taking
on the masks of such poets as Yeats, Edith Sitwell and Vaughan. These
poems are not always to be regarded simply light verse one remembers
that Smith has edited an anthology of ‘serious light verse’. (125).
He further says:
Smith, in fact, has always been a Chameleon - like poet, adopting
poses and poetical stances to indulge in exercises in poetry. Some of his
religious poetry comes into this category (125).
In Smith’s parodies we find a co-existence of traditional and revolutionary impulses.
As parodies can not be explained totally in structuralist form or in a post structuralist
absorption of everything into textuallity, it is very important to consider the nature
and direction of parody. Here an attempt is made to discuss parody in the light of
some of the critical perspections associated with Mikhail Bakhtin, Frederic Jameson
and Roland Barthes.
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In the opinion of Roland Barthes parody is a conservative mode which is why
he describes parody as a ‘classic’ discourse. In critical essays Barthes says parody can
suggest.
Complicity with the culture, which is merely a deceptive offhand way
of showing a profound respect for classical national values (119).
What Barthes points out here is a neglected element of complicity in
traditional definition of parody: such traditional definitions emphasize that parody is
structured around the component of ridicule, mockery and contrast, but they neglect
the component of complicity. (In the modem period, the parodies are written not with
the intention of ridicule but with reverence as in Smith’s poem ‘To Hemy Vaughan’.
(140)
Miidiail Bakhtin, in his book The Dialogic Imagination (1981) says that
‘parody is an international hybrid’ (76) in the sense that two languages are crossed
with each other, as well as styles and in the final analysis, two speaking subjects. In
his poem “A Hyacinth for Edith” (14), Smith uses a language typical of Sitwell’s to
represent a picture of spring and another language to represent sterile, contemporary
life in ‘Hyacinth for Edith’ Smith is influenced by Edith Sitwell’s style and
mannerisms. He says:
Now that the ashen of gummy April
Clacks like a weedy and stain’d mill,
So that all the tall purple trees
Are pied porpoises in swishing seas.
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And the yellow horses and milch cows
Come out of their long Frosty house. (14)
The imagery used in the above lines reminds us of imagery of Edith Sitwell in her
poems. It is clear that only one of these languages (the one that is parodied) is present
in its own right, the other is present invisibly. Bakhtin states that “eveiy type of
intentional stylistic hybrid is more or less diologized” (76).
For Bakhtin, dialogism means the languages that are crossed in text relate to each
other is present invisibly, as an actualizing background for creating and perceiving.
But it is neither a dialogue in the narrative sense, nor in the abstract sense: rather it is
a dialogue between points of view, each with its own concrete language that cannot
be translated into the other. Thus, Bakhtin sees every parody as an international
dialogized hybrid.
Recognizing the elements of parody may be difficult if the target is not an
author but a particular work unknown to the reader.
In such case Walter Nash
suggests that we should recognize the parodic intent by ‘literary language’
representing the stylistic character of whole periods like ‘Medieval’, ‘Elizabethan’,
‘Restoration’ and so on. Here in Smith’s poem ‘Ballade un peu Banale’ an argument
is made not to target an author or a particular work but the style of a period. In his
‘Introduction’ to The Classic Shade: Selected Poems (1978) M.L.Rosenthal
comments on the poem as:
We’re listening to something like pure poetic engagement, the poet’s
happy engagement with his parody of sexual melodrama and with all
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lovely paraphernalia of medieval lyric, of pastoral romance, and of
earthy piety he can deploy in it (11).
If the text of the poem is not the style of a particular writer or a poet but a period and
a genre, then the lyric may be read as an image of target at the language of medieval
lyric and pastoral conventions. Hence the derived expression is not finally medieval
language with archaisms such as “Antoundeth gentil Cow” but a medley of words
ancient and modem. The essential parodic mismatchings are present, the title exhibits
a kind of discrepancy, the title in French trying to realign itself with an unfamiliar
spelling (astoundeth, gentil etc.). There is also a paradoxical misapplication of a
limiting adverbial idea to virgin cow to heaven, Christ is described as having to make
use o f ‘some miraculous device’:
I like to think sweet Jesus Christ,
For His dear Mother’s sake,
By some miraculous device,
Her to Himself did take;
That her preserved virginity
Flutes holy flats and sharps
I that divine vicinity
Where Eliot’s hippo harps. (81)
We can find a medley of the sacred and the profane as we notice a medley of
language ancient and modem in the peorm.
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Sometimes a parodic text does not have any intent to ridicule or contrast but
we can nevertheless find a complicity with the text parodied. Such is the case in
Smith’s poem “To Henry Vaughan” which presents Vaughans’ combination of
homesickness and sensitivity to the divinity of his place of exile:
Homesick? And yet your country walks
Were heavend for you. Such bright stalks
Of grasses! Such pure green! (140).
The opening seems as if Smith is ridiculing Vaughan’s religiocity. But the
intention of this light hearted exercise is certainly not to stage a ridiculous or satirical
attach on a religious poet. The parody aims affectionately at high lighting certain
phrases and mannerisms: and it is the parodist at rise, if the purpose of his imitation
goes unrecognized. In order to make the reference clear, Smith signals that his poem
refers to Vaughan in the title. He accurately grasps Vaughan’s sensibility and idiom in
the main body of the text. Smith shows outstanding skill in reproducing Vaughan’s
language. Rosenthal says:
Most obviously in such a poem as “To Henry Vaughan”, ... his
mimetic emphathy files the lines with the light of a kindered sensibility
eroused by his sheer love of Vaughan’s phrasing (9).
Smith’s poem “To Henry Vaughan” is fiill of Vaughan’s phrases. His lines:
‘country walks / were heaven’d for you’ have a direct reference to Vaughan’s line ‘He
heaven’d for you’ in his poem “The searer”, and Smith’s image of God as
‘bridegroom’ can be seen in Vaughan’s poem “The Dawning”. The language Smith
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uses in the poem is that of reverence not of ridicule: but he suggests a notable
discrepancy in the following lines:
Lifting the rapt soul out of time
Into a long Eternity (141)
Since when applied to the infinite duration of eternity long is an understatement and
produces an ironic effect. Smith makes it clear that:
Its purpose however, is not to be ironic at the expense of the native of
Henry Vaughan. Far fi-om it. The poem is a genuine tribute to a wholly
admirable poet and seer. 215-216)
The purpose of the epithet is to convey as clearly as possible the identification of time
and eternity in the mind of Vaughan as a mystic.
When heaven is now, and still to be (141).
Smith further continues:
I think this (the purpose) gets across for the reader who is sympathetic
to Vaughan or to Christian or Platonic ideas. For one who is not (and
the present writer is sometimes one such reader and sometimes the
other) the effect of irony does come through after all, and gently
indicates the noble fiitility of Vaughan’s magnificent piety (216).
Here the intrusion of Smith’s own idiom brings an ironic effect and the intent
of the parodic text is left open for the reader to treat as either ridicule or reverential.
Smith’s “The Circle”, “The Fountain”, “A Little Night Piece”, “Nightfall” are
reverential parodies on Vaughan’s style and content. His other poem “Souvenirs du
Temps Bien Perdu” is a parody on James Joyce’s style of v^iting for example:
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Blouse and bloomers, blouse and bloomers, dewy warm
against your skin.
Pretty breasts and little buttocks, oh! The Joyce sweets
of sin.
As I fumble at the buttons and clastics yours are in! (88)
Smith is praised for his parodistic styles by critics such as Leon Edel, George
Woodcock, Desmond Pacey and Milton Wilson. He is also a good practitioner of
pastiches.
Pastiche:
As Linda Hutcheon developed a theory for parody, no theory has been
developed for pastiche. However, an attempt is made to explain the meaning of the
term pastiche. The word ‘pastiche’ is derived from the Latin word ‘pasta’ which
means paste or a literary or other work of art composed in the style of a well known
writer, artist etc. It is a work of imitation.
To have a clear understanding of the word pastiche, it is very essential to know
the difference between parody and pastiche. It is very difficult to distinguish parody
from pastiche but there are certain measures by which we can avoid confixsion
between these two categories.
It seems that parody seeks differentiation in its
relationship to its model: Pastiche operates by similarity and correspondence.
According to Genette, “Parody is transformational in its relationship to other texts:
pastiche is imitative” (38). Hence Pastiche seems to be more superficial. Carolyn
wells in her “Parody as a Fine Art” says pastiche is “form rendering”. Usually
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pastiche has to remain within the same genre as its model whereas Parody allows for
adaptation. Pastiche is often imitation of not of a single text but of a number of texts.
So it involves inter style not the inter text. Both parody and pastiche are not only
formal textual imitations but involve the issue of intent. Both are acknowledged
borrowings as pointed out by Linda Hutcheon in her book A Theory o f Parody.
In his “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” Frederic Jameson says;
Pastiche, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique style, the
wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language: but it is a
neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody’s ulterior motive,
without the satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent
feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is
being imitated is rather comic. (114)
As pointed out by Jameson satirical impulse may not be there is pastiche but
sometime pastiche may have an element of humour. Sometimes, a parody may
contain pastiche which is explained by Leon Edel in his essay “The Wordly Muse of
A.J.M. Smith”. He sees Smith’s poem “Sovenir Du Temps Perdu” as a parody.
Though it is a parody as it has many scraps pasted from many sources.
Smith’s poem “Souvenirs du Temps Perdu” is a pastiche in the sense, there are
many references the styles of Marcel Proust, W.B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, G.K.
Chesterton, T.S. Eliot, Robert Browning and scrapts of a popular song. The following
lines echo all these references;
I will arise and go now
and go to the lavabo
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Where men without women
are standing in a row.
Don John of Austria
tias doffed his winter drawers
Don John of Austria
is riding with the whores.
God I will rise and take a train
and get me to April once again
for April is the cruelest nymph
scattering garters and spent stays
On an unmade bed in a one-room head.
O to be in April now that
Yes sir she’s my baby... (101)
As is evident the lines “I will arise and go now” is a direct imitation of W.B.
yeats’s opening lines of “The Lake Isle Innsfree”, “Men Without Women” is the title
of the collection of short stories by Hemingway. Don John of Austria is a direct
reference to G.K. Chesterton’s “The Battle of Lepanto”, ‘April is the cruelest nymph’
is an elusion to the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, ‘scattering garters
and spent stays on/ an unmade bed in a one - room head’ are direct reference to the
III section of The Waste Land. ‘O to be in April now’ that is a literary allusion to
Robert Browning’s “Home Thoughts from Abroad”. ‘Yes sir she’s my baby ...’ refers
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to a popular song in the poem it may be regarded as a pastiche. But the style he seems
to be imitating is the style of T.S. Eliot.
It is known that Smith has been railed as a master of pastiche by critics such as
Leon Edel, Milton Wilson and George Woodcock. Literary theorists discuss pastiche
as a corollary to parody. In fact, they are two different categories. The only common
feature between parody and pastiche being that they both involve imitation or more
precisely, the imitation of styles. Frederic Jameson in his essay “Postmodernism and
Consumer Society” argues that Pastiche is a postmodern phenomenon but I argue in
this chapter that like parody, pastiche is also a phenomenon of modernism. Further,
Frederic Jameson suggests that if Pastiche is a postmodern phenomenon how could a
modernist poet as Smith be properly recognized as a master of Pastiche? So in this
section, an attempt is made to discuss wider perspectives on pastiche in modem times
with special reference to Smith’s pastiches.
Jameson argues that since the emergence of the great modem styles, each
individual has become a linguistic island developing his or her ovm private code or
idiolect. In that case, parody disappears. Jameson says “that is the moment at which
pastiche appears and parody has become impossible” (114) Jameson further
continues:
There is another sense in which the writers and artists of the present
day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds - they’ve
already been invented; only a limited number of combinations are
possible: the most unique ones have been thought of already. So the
weight of the whole modemist aesthetic tradition now dead also
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“weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living” as Marx said in
another context. (115)
In such a situation Jameson suggests that pastiche emerges to imitate the dead
styles. But his observation that no unique style or combinations are left for the present
day writers is not fully convincing. If it is true that literaiy production comes to a
stand still with the failure of the genuinely new. In such a case, how do we account
for the styles of contemporary writers such as Edwin Margon. Seamus Heaney or
Geoffrey Hill in Britain: or John Ashbeiy and Robert Kroetsch in the North America.
In fact, the influence of the forms of high modernism affects the new writers like a
nightmare but it does not mean that they simply become mere imitators of dead styles
rather they resort parody and pastiche consciously or unconsciously as a means to
discover new modes of writing. If we read a literary work we can identify the traces
of earlier writers. By that we are aware of features which never, to our knowledge,
appear in literature previous to the work we are reading. With this observation there
springs an opposition between imitation and invention, which the writings of Walters
Jackson Bate and Harold Bloom are of great help in resolving. New writers try to
escape what Bloom calls ‘the anxiety of influence’ but they cannot. So, they adopt
their predecessor’s but again they cannot write like that.
So they adopt their
predecessor’s literary forms and styles instead. There they may take some swerve
from their precursor’s style of writing in respect of ideas and techniques. Thus,
imitating poets create within their own work varying tension between new language
and old form. This tension may not be very great, as when poets select a near
contemporary for their model: but this is also the moment the poet is least free, least
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individual. In Odysseus Even Returning: Essays on Canadian writers and Writings,
George Woodcock comments on Smith’s use of parody and pastiche as:
Hence like Joyce and Eliot and Pound of the half-generation just before
him, Smith resorts to those sublime forms of literary criticism - the
only fully creative ones: the parody the translation (there are excellent
renderings of Gautier and Mallarme) the deliberate pastiche (the
“Souvenir du Temps Perdu” written for Leon Edel) and the tribute “in
the manner o f’ (finely rendered in “To Henry Vaughan”). All these are
more than feats of imitative virtuosity: they are the empathetic
approaches of a poet who can, when he so desires, be resoundingly
himself’. (114)
The influence of T.S. Eliot as poet of satires, parodies, pastiches is quite
apparent on the parodies, satires and pashches of A.J.M. Smith. However, Smith
never remained as an imitative poet of his mentor but he worked towards developing
Canadian poetic tradition in the modem aesthetics. Bloom’s concepts Clinamen and
Kenosis are the forces behind the poetic influence: these concepts have been
explained at length in the first chapter. We find a skillful exemplication of these
concepts in Smith’s use of satires, parodies and pastiches in Canadian modem poetry.
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