The Oxford Book of Parodies

ISBN-13: 9780199548828 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 416 str.

John Gross

Opis

Parodies come in all shapes and sizes. There are broad parodies and subtle parodies, ingenious imitations and knockabout spoofs, scornful lampoons and affectionate pastiches. All these varieties, and many others, appear in this delightful anthology, which has been hailed as "delightful" (Wall Street Journal), "enjoyable" (The New Yorker), and "sparkling" (The Financial Times). The classics of the genre are all here, but so are scores of lesser known but scarcely less brilliant works. At every stage there are surprises. Proust visits Chelsea, Yeats re-writes "Old King Cole," Harry Potter encounters Mick Jagger, a modernized Sermon on the Mount rubs shoulders with an obituary of Sherlock Holmes. The collection provides a hilarious running commentary on literary history, but it also looks beyond literature to include such things as ad parodies, political parodies, and even a scientific hoax. The collection includes work by such accomplished parodists as Max Beerbohm, Robert Benchley, H. L. Mencken, and Evelyn Waugh. And the "victims" include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Poe, Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Cole Porter, Martin Amis, and many others.

Recenzje

His new and welcome anthology is well stocked with witty and diverting specimens.

O autorze

John Gross was editor of the TLS from 1973-80 and a staff writer for the New York Times from 1983-9; he was theatre critic for the Sunday Telegraph from 1989-2005. He is the author of books including The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (1969; revised 1991), Shylock: a Legend and its Legacy (1992, winner of the Heinemann Prize of The Royal Society of Literature), and a memoir, A Double Thread (2001). For Oxford he has edited anthologies of Aphorisms, Essays, Comic Verse, English Prose and After Shakespeare. His most recent anthology is The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (2006, pbk 2008).