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85-478: Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist under the signature Max . He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist . He was the drama critic for the Saturday Review from 1898 until 1910, when he relocated to Rapallo , Italy. In his later years he was popular for his occasional radio broadcasts. Among his best-known works

170-662: A Star Wars spoof). The British comedy group Monty Python is also famous for its parodies, for example, the King Arthur spoof Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), and the Jesus satire Life of Brian (1979). In the 1980s the team of David Zucker , Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker parodied well-established genres such as disaster, war and police movies with the Airplane! , Hot Shots! and Naked Gun series respectively. There

255-474: A 200-mile-long creature generally interpreted as being a whale. This is a parody of Ctesias ' claims that India has a one-legged race of humans with a single foot so huge it can be used as an umbrella, Homer 's stories of one-eyed giants, and so on. Parody exists in the following related genres: satire , travesty, pastiche , skit , burlesque . Satires and parodies are both derivative works that exaggerate their source material(s) in humorous ways. However,

340-422: A 20th-century Irish context, and T. S. Eliot 's The Waste Land , which incorporates and recontextualizes elements of a vast range of prior texts, including Dante 's The Inferno . The work of Andy Warhol is another prominent example of the modern "recontextualizing" parody. According to French literary theorist Gérard Genette , the most rigorous and elegant form of parody is also the most economical, that

425-866: A Jewish artist. Beerbohm was knighted by George VI in 1939; it was thought that this mark of esteem had been delayed by his mockery in 1911 of the king's parents, about whom he had written a satiric verse, "Ballade Tragique a Double Refrain". In August 1942, on the occasion of Beerbohm's seventieth birthday, the Maximilian Society was created by a London drama critic in his honour. It had seventy distinguished members, including J. B. Priestley , Walter de la Mare , Augustus John , William Rothenstein , Edward Lutyens , Osbert Lancaster , Siegfried Sassoon , Osbert Sitwell , Leonard Woolf , John Betjeman , Kenneth Clark , E. M. Forster , Graham Greene , and Laurence Housman , and planned to add one more member on each of Beerbohm's successive birthdays. In their first meeting

510-936: A banquet was held in his honour, and he was presented with seventy bottles of wine. He died at the Villa Chiara, a private hospital in Rapallo , Italy, aged 83, shortly after marrying his former secretary and companion, Elisabeth Jungmann . Beerbohm was cremated in Genoa and his ashes were interred in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral , London, on 29 June 1956. A relation is the American comic book historian Robert Beerbohm (1952–2024). Parody The writer and critic John Gross observes in his Oxford Book of Parodies , that parody seems to flourish on territory somewhere between pastiche ("a composition in another artist's manner, without satirical intent") and burlesque (which "fools around with

595-569: A chamber pot. We have 'Research on Why Men Have Beards and Women Don't,' 'A Telegram from the Thunder God to His Mother Resigning His Post,' and 'A Public Notice from the King of Whoring Prohibiting Playboys from Skipping Debts.'" Jorge Luis Borges 's (1939) short story " Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote ", is often regarded as predicting postmodernism and conceiving the ideal of the ultimate parody. In

680-463: A critique or commentary upon it. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. , the Supreme Court ruled that a rap parody of " Oh, Pretty Woman " by 2 Live Crew was fair use, as the parody was a distinctive, transformative work designed to ridicule the original song, and that "even if 2 Live Crew's copying of the original's first line of lyrics and characteristic opening bass riff may be said to go to

765-530: A different, often incongruous, context. Musical parodies may imitate or refer to the peculiar style of a composer or artist, or even a general style of music. For example, "The Ritz Roll and Rock", a song and dance number performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Silk Stockings , parodies the rock and roll genre. Conversely, while the best-known work of "Weird Al" Yankovic is based on particular popular songs, it also often utilises wildly incongruous elements of pop culture for comedic effect. The first usage of

850-501: A famous example of which is the Silloi by Pyrrhonist philosopher Timon of Phlius which parodied philosophers living and dead. The style was a rhetorical mainstay of the Cynics and was the most common tone of the works made by Menippus and Meleager of Gadara . In the 2nd century CE, Lucian of Samosata created a parody of travel texts such as Indica and The Odyssey . He described

935-563: A garden party at Buckingham Palace, but as I got to know him better I realised that he just could not do anything else." In his years in Rapallo Beerbohm was visited by many of the eminent men and women of his day, including Ezra Pound , who lived nearby, Somerset Maugham , John Gielgud , Laurence Olivier and Truman Capote among others. Beerbohm never learned to speak Italian in the five decades that he lived in Italy. From 1935 onwards, he

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1020-636: A glutton and the God of Drama Dionysus as cowardly and unintelligent. The traditional trip to the Underworld story is parodied as Dionysus dresses as Heracles to go to the Underworld, in an attempt to bring back a poet to save Athens. The Ancient Greeks created satyr plays which parodied tragic plays , often with performers dressed like satyrs . Parody was used in early Greek philosophical texts to make philosophical points. Such texts are known as spoudaiogeloion ,

1105-520: A lack of independence while embracing codependency . In Flann O'Brien 's novel At Swim-Two-Birds , for example, mad King Sweeney , Finn MacCool , a pookah , and an assortment of cowboys all assemble in an inn in Dublin : the mixture of mythic characters, characters from genre fiction, and a quotidian setting combine for a humor that is not directed at any of the characters or their authors. This combination of established and identifiable characters in

1190-466: A natural development in the life cycle of any genre ; this idea has proven especially fruitful for genre film theorists. Such theorists note that Western movies , for example, after the classic stage defined the conventions of the genre, underwent a parody stage, in which those same conventions were ridiculed and critiqued. Because audiences had seen these classic Westerns, they had expectations for any new Westerns, and when these expectations were inverted,

1275-412: A new setting is not the same as the post-modernist trope of using historical characters in fiction out of context to provide a metaphoric element. Sometimes the reputation of a parody outlasts the reputation of what is being parodied. For example, Don Quixote , which mocks the traditional knight errant tales, is much better known than the novel that inspired it, Amadis de Gaula (although Amadis

1360-445: A parody, pastiche is neither transformative of the original work, nor is it humorous. Literary critic Fredric Jameson has referred to the pastiche as a "blank parody", or "parody that has lost its sense of humor". Skits imitate works "in a satirical regime". But unlike travesties, skits do not transform the source material. The burlesque primarily targets heroic poems and theater to degrade popular heroes and gods, as well as mock

1445-420: A pre-existing, copyrighted work, some countries have ruled that parodies can fall under copyright limitations such as fair dealing , or otherwise have fair dealing laws that include parody in their scope. Parodies are protected under the fair use doctrine of United States copyright law , but the defense is more successful if the usage of an existing copyrighted work is transformative in nature, such as being

1530-544: A relationship that lasted several years. On his return to England Beerbohm published his first book, The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896), a collection of his essays which had first appeared in The Yellow Book . His first piece of fiction, The Happy Hypocrite , was published in volume XI of The Yellow Book in October 1896. Having been interviewed by George Bernard Shaw himself, in 1898 he followed Shaw as drama critic for

1615-409: A reworking of one kind of composition into another (for example, a motet into a keyboard work as Girolamo Cavazzoni , Antonio de Cabezón , and Alonso Mudarra all did to Josquin des Prez motets ). More commonly, a parody mass ( missa parodia ) or an oratorio used extensive quotation from other vocal works such as motets or cantatas ; Victoria , Palestrina , Lassus , and other composers of

1700-515: A satire is meant to make fun of the real world, whereas a parody is a derivative of a specific work ("specific parody") or a general genre ("general parody" or "spoof"). Furthermore, satires are provocative and critical as they point to a specific vice associated with an individual or a group of people to mock them into correction or as a form of punishment. In contrast, parodies are more focused on producing playful humor and do not always attack or criticize its targeted work and/or genre. Of course, it

1785-533: A satirical comedy about Adolf Hitler with the film The Great Dictator , following the first-ever Hollywood parody of the Nazis, the Three Stooges ' short subject You Nazty Spy! . About 20 years later Mel Brooks started his career with a Hitler parody as well. After his 1967 film The Producers won both an Academy Award and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, Brooks became one of

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1870-430: A serious film, but decided that it would not be able to compete with the established series of Bond films. Hence, he decided to parody the series. Kenneth Baker considered poetic parody to take five main forms. A further, more constructive form of poetic parody is one that links the contemporary poet with past forms and past masters through affectionate parodying – thus sharing poetic codes while avoiding some of

1955-725: A special place as a subject for affectionate ridicule. Many of Beerbohm's later caricatures were of himself. Major collections of Beerbohm's caricatures are in the Ashmolean Museum , Oxford ; the Tate collection; the Victoria and Albert Museum ; Charterhouse School ; the Clark Library , University of California ; and the Lilly Library , Indiana University ; depositories of both caricatures and archival material include Merton College, Oxford ;

2040-780: A student at Oxford and which had originally been printed in The Yellow Book , The Savoy , The Pageant , The Chap Book , and other notable periodicals, the book was published in London by John Lane at The Bodley Head in 1896, and launched Beerbohm's career as an essayist. The book contains Beerbohm's notorious essay A Defence of Cosmetics , which had appeared in the first number of The Yellow Book in April 1894, revised and renamed The Pervasion of Rouge . "Replete with mock-scholarly footnotes and biographical information, The Works epitomizes Beerbohm's penchant for deflating pretentiousness with satiric imitation," wrote Ann Adams Cleary in

2125-544: A well-known figure in Oxford social circles. He also began submitting articles and caricatures to London publications, which were met enthusiastically. "I was a modest, good-humoured boy", he recalled. "It was Oxford that has made me insufferable." In March 1893, he submitted an article on Oscar Wilde to the Anglo-American Times under the pen name "An American". Later in 1893 his essay "The Incomparable Beauty of Modern Dress"

2210-597: A work for humorous or satirical effect. See also Fair dealing in United Kingdom law . Some countries do not like parodies and the parodies can be considered insulting. The person who makes the parody can be fined or even jailed. For instance in the UAE and North Korea, this is not allowed. Parody is a prominent genre in online culture, thanks in part to the ease with which digital texts may be altered, appropriated, and shared. Japanese kuso and Chinese e'gao are emblematic of

2295-411: Is a minimal parody , the one that literally reprises a known text and gives it a new meaning. Blank parody, in which an artist takes the skeletal form of an art work and places it in a new context without ridiculing it, is common. Pastiche is a closely related genre , and parody can also occur when characters or settings belonging to one work are used in a humorous or ironic way in another, such as

2380-621: Is a 1989 film parody from Spain of the TV series The A-Team called El equipo Aahhgg directed by José Truchado. More recently, parodies have taken on whole film genres at once. One of the first was Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood and the Scary Movie franchise. Other recent genre parodies include. Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th , Not Another Teen Movie , Date Movie , Epic Movie , Meet

2465-419: Is clearly aimed at a popular (and usually lucrative) subject. The spy film craze of the 1960s, fuelled by the popularity of James Bond is such an example. In this genre a rare, and possibly unique, example of a parody film taking aim at a non-comedic subject over which it actually holds copyright is the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale . In this case, producer Charles K. Feldman initially intended to make

2550-492: Is described as an American. When asked by George Bernard Shaw if he had any Jewish ancestors, Beerbohm replied: "That my talent is rather like Jewish talent I admit readily... But, being in fact a Gentile, I am, in a small way, rather remarkable, and wish to remain so." In his poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley Ezra Pound , a neighbour in Rapallo – and later a supporter of fascism and anti-Semitism – caricatured Beerbohm as "Brennbaum",

2635-409: Is his only novel, Zuleika Dobson , published in 1911. His caricatures, drawn usually in pen or pencil with muted watercolour tinting, are in many public collections. Born in 57 Palace Gardens Terrace, London which is now marked with a blue plaque , Henry Maximilian Beerbohm was the youngest of nine children of a Lithuanian -born grain merchant , Julius Ewald Edward Beerbohm (1811–1892). His mother

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2720-455: Is mentioned in the book). Another case is the novel Shamela by Henry Fielding (1742), which was a parody of the gloomy epistolary novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) by Samuel Richardson . Many of Lewis Carroll 's parodies of Victorian didactic verse for children, such as " You Are Old, Father William ", are much better known than the (largely forgotten) originals. Stella Gibbons 's comic novel Cold Comfort Farm has eclipsed

2805-405: Is not required under law to get permission to parody; as a personal rule, however, he does seek permission to parody a person's song before recording it. Several artists, such as rapper Chamillionaire and Seattle-based grunge band Nirvana stated that Yankovic's parodies of their respective songs were excellent, and many artists have considered being parodied by him to be a badge of honor. In

2890-412: Is nothing in them compatible with Judaism. Beerbohm was close to four half-siblings, one of whom, Herbert Beerbohm Tree , was already a renowned stage actor when Max was a child. Other older half-siblings were the author and explorer Julius Beerbohm and the author Constance Beerbohm . His nieces were Viola , Felicity and Iris Tree . From 1881 to 1885, Max – he was always called simply "Max" and it

2975-408: Is often used to make a social or political statement. Examples include Swift 's " A Modest Proposal ", which satirized English neglect of Ireland by parodying emotionally disengaged political tracts; and, recently, The Daily Show , The Larry Sanders Show and The Colbert Report , which parody a news broadcast and a talk show to satirize political and social trends and events. On the other hand,

3060-424: Is possible for a parody to maintain satiric elements without crossing into satire itself, as long as its "light verse with modest aspirations" ultimately dominates the work. A travesty imitates and transforms a work, but focuses more on the satirization of it. Because satire is meant to attack someone or something, the harmless playfulness of parody is lost. A pastiche imitates a work as a parody does, but unlike

3145-564: Is protection for Fair Dealing , there is no explicit protection for parody and satire. In Canwest v. Horizon , the publisher of the Vancouver Sun launched a lawsuit against a group which had published a pro- Palestinian parody of the paper. Alan Donaldson, the judge in the case, ruled that parody is not a defence to a copyright claim. As of the implementation of the Copyright Modernization Act 2012, "Fair dealing for

3230-418: Is set against the original. The Oxford English Dictionary , for example, defines parody as imitation "turned as to produce a ridiculous effect". Because par- also has the non-antagonistic meaning of beside , "there is nothing in parodia to necessitate the inclusion of a concept of ridicule." In Greek Old Comedy even the gods could be made fun of. The Frogs portrays the hero-turned-god Heracles as

3315-463: Is thus that he signed his drawings – attended the day school of a Mr Wilkinson in Orme Square . Wilkinson, Beerbohm later said, "gave me my love of Latin and thereby enabled me to write English". Mrs Wilkinson taught drawing to the students, the only lessons Beerbohm ever had in the subject. Beerbohm was educated at Charterhouse School and Merton College, Oxford , from 1890, where he was Secretary of

3400-474: The Dictionary of Literary Biography . "Anything large - ideas, ideals, literary works, London crowds - caused him dismay." In this, his first book, the 24-year-old Beerbohm announced gravely that he would now retire from letters, having said all there was to say. Of course, he did not. A limited edition of 780 copies, signed and numbered by the author, was issued in 1922, with 750 being offered for sale, while

3485-452: The Punch tradition, he showed a lightness of touch and simplicity of line. Beerbohm's career as a professional caricaturist began when he was twenty: in 1892 The Strand Magazine published thirty-six of his drawings of 'Club Types'. Their publication dealt, Beerbohm said, "a great, an almost mortal blow to my modesty". The first public exhibition of his caricatures was as part of a group show at

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3570-527: The Saturday Review , on whose staff he remained until 1910. At that time the Saturday Review was undergoing renewed popularity under its new owner, the writer Frank Harris , who would later become a close friend of Beerbohm's. It was Shaw, in his final Saturday Review piece, who bestowed upon Beerbohm the lasting epithet, "the Incomparable Max" when he wrote, "The younger generation is knocking at

3655-594: The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 , now provides an exception to infringement where there is fair dealing of the original work for the purpose of parody (or alternatively for the purpose of caricature or pastiche). The legislation does not define what is meant by "parody", but the UK IPO ;– the Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom)  – suggests that a "parody" is something that imitates

3740-547: The Fine Art Society in 1896; his first one-man show at the Carfax Gallery in 1901. Explaining his system for caricature, Beerbohm wrote: "The whole man must be melted down in a crucible and then, from the solution, fashioned anew. Nothing will be lost but no particle will be as it was before." He concluded: "The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to

3825-497: The Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon . Parody generators are computer programs which generate text that is syntactically correct , but usually meaningless , often in the style of a technical paper or a particular writer. They are also called travesty generators and random text generators. Their purpose is often satirical , intending to show that there is little difference between the generated text and real examples. Parody

3910-610: The Harry Ransom Center , University of Texas at Austin ; the Robert H. Taylor collection, Princeton University Library ; the Houghton Library , Harvard University ; and the privately owned Mark Samuels Lasner collection. Beerbohm married the actress Florence Kahn in 1910. There has been speculation that he was a non-active homosexual ( Malcolm Muggeridge , who much disliked him, imputed homosexuality to him), that his marriage

3995-487: The Myrmidon Club . It was at school that he began writing. While at Oxford Beerbohm became acquainted with Oscar Wilde and his circle through his half-brother, Herbert Beerbohm Tree . In 1893, he met William Rothenstein , who introduced him to Aubrey Beardsley and other members of the literary and artistic circle connected with The Bodley Head . Although he was an unenthusiastic student academically, Beerbohm became

4080-656: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a fair use defense in the Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books case. Citing the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose decision, they found that a satire of the O.J. Simpson murder trial and parody of The Cat in the Hat had infringed upon the children's book because it did not provide a commentary function upon that work. Under Canadian law , although there

4165-472: The anxiety of influence . More aggressive in tone are playground poetry parodies, often attacking authority, values and culture itself in a carnivalesque rebellion: "Twinkle, Twinkle little star,/ Who the hell do you think you are?" A subset of parody is self-parody in which artists parody their own work (as in Ricky Gervais 's Extras ). Although a parody can be considered a derivative work of

4250-525: The 16th century used this technique. The term is also sometimes applied to procedures common in the Baroque period , such as when Bach reworks music from cantatas in his Christmas Oratorio . The musicological definition of the term parody has now generally been supplanted by a more general meaning of the word. In its more contemporary usage, musical parody usually has humorous, even satirical intent, in which familiar musical ideas or lyrics are lifted into

4335-550: The 1910s and 1920s, writers in China's entertainment market parodied anything and everything.... They parodied speeches, advertisements, confessions, petitions, orders, handbills, notices, policies, regulations, resolutions, discourses, explications, sutras, memorials to the throne, and conference minutes. We have an exchange of letters between the Queue and the Beard and Eyebrows. We have a eulogy for

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4420-576: The Spartans , Superhero Movie , Disaster Movie , Vampires Suck , and The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It , all of which have been critically panned. Many parody films have as their target out-of-copyright or non-copyrighted subjects (such as Frankenstein or Robin Hood) whilst others settle for imitation which does not infringe copyright, but

4505-538: The US legal system the point that in most cases a parody of a work constitutes fair use was upheld in the case of Rick Dees , who decided to use 29 seconds of the music from the song When Sonny Gets Blue to parody Johnny Mathis ' singing style even after being refused permission. An appeals court upheld the trial court's decision that this type of parody represents fair use. Fisher v. Dees 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986) Some genre theorists , following Bakhtin , see parody as

4590-736: The advantages of a new parody exception were sufficient to override the disadvantages to the creators and owners of the underlying work. There is therefore no proposal to change the current approach to parody, caricature and pastiche in the UK." However, following the Hargreaves Review in May 2011 (which made similar proposals to the Gowers Review) the Government broadly accepted these proposals. The current law (effective from 1 October 2014), namely Section 30A of

4675-537: The audience laughed. An early parody film was the 1922 movie Mud and Sand , a Stan Laurel film that made fun of Rudolph Valentino 's film Blood and Sand . Laurel specialized in parodies in the mid-1920s, writing and acting in a number of them. Some were send-ups of popular films, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde —parodied in the comic Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1926). Others were spoofs of Broadway plays, such as No, No, Nanette (1925), parodied as Yes, Yes, Nanette (1925). In 1940 Charlie Chaplin created

4760-516: The authors of such accounts as liars who had never traveled, nor ever talked to any credible person who had. In his ironically named book True History Lucian delivers a story which exaggerates the hyperbole and improbable claims of those stories. Sometimes described as the first science fiction , the characters travel to the Moon, engage in interplanetary war with the help of aliens they meet there, and then return to Earth to experience civilization inside

4845-537: The broader sense of Greek parodia , parody can occur when whole elements of one work are lifted out of their context and reused, not necessarily to be ridiculed. Traditional definitions of parody usually only discuss parody in the stricter sense of something intended to ridicule the text it parodies. There is also a broader, extended sense of parody that may not include ridicule, and may be based on many other uses and intentions. The broader sense of parody, parody done with intent other than ridicule, has become prevalent in

4930-481: The case of the moralistic melodramas in the 1910s, it retains value only as a parody, as demonstrated by the Buster Keaton shorts that mocked that genre. A parody may also be known as a spoof , a satire , a send-up , a take-off , a lampoon , a play on ( something ), or a caricature . According to Aristotle ( Poetics , ii. 5), Hegemon of Thasos was the inventor of a kind of parody; by slightly altering

5015-523: The central and most representative artistic device, the catalysing agent of artistic creation and innovation. This most prominently happened in the second half of the century with postmodernism , but earlier modernism and Russian formalism had anticipated this perspective. For the Russian formalists, parody was a way of liberation from the background text that enables to produce new and autonomous artistic forms. Historian Christopher Rea writes that "In

5100-434: The clutches of Lord Alfred Douglas , "I really think Reg is at a rather crucial point of his career – and should hate to see him fall an entire victim to the love that dare not tell its name." The fact is that not much is known of Beerbohm's private life. Evelyn Waugh also speculated that Beerbohm had made a mariage blanc but added: "Beerbohm remarked of Ruskin that it was surprising he should marry, without knowing he

5185-416: The common tropes within the genre. Simon Dentith has described this type of parody as "parodic anti-heroic drama". A parody imitates and mocks a specific, recognizable work (e.g. a book, movie, etc.) or the characteristic style of a particular author. A spoof mocks an entire genre by exaggerating its conventions and cliches for humorous effect. In classical music , as a technical term, parody refers to

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5270-524: The door; and as I open it there steps spritely in the incomparable Max". In 1904 Beerbohm met the American actress Florence Kahn . In 1910 they married and moved to Rapallo in Italy, partly as an escape from the social demands and the expense of living in London. Here they remained for the rest of their lives except for the duration of World War I and World War II , when they returned to Britain, and occasional trips to England to take part in exhibitions of his drawings. Beerbohm and his wife Florence spent

5355-563: The fashionable magazines of the time, and his works were exhibited regularly in London at the Carfax Gallery (1901–08) and Leicester Galleries (1911–57). At his Rapallo home he drew and wrote infrequently and decorated books in his library. These were sold at auction by Sotheby's of London on 12 and 13 December 1960 following the death of his second wife and literary executor Elisabeth Jungmann . His Rapallo caricatures were mostly of late Victorian and Edwardian political, literary and theatrical personalities. The court of Edward VII had

5440-502: The highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment, in the most beautiful manner." Beerbohm was influenced by French cartoonists such as " Sem " (Georges Goursat) and " Caran d'Ache " (Emmanuel Poiré). He was hailed by The Times in 1913 as "the greatest of English comic artists", by Bernard Berenson as "the English Goya ", and by Edmund Wilson as "the greatest ... portrayer of personalities – in

5525-414: The history of art". Usually inept with hands and feet, Beerbohm excelled in heads and with dandified male costume of a period whose elegance became a source of nostalgic inspiration. His collections of caricatures included Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen (1896), The Poets' Corner (1904), Fifty Caricatures (1913) and Rossetti and His Circle (1922). His caricatures were published widely in

5610-540: The importance of parody in online cultures in Asia. Video mash-ups and other parodic memes , such as humorously altered Chinese characters, have been particularly popular as a tool for political protest in the People's Republic of China, the government of which maintains an extensive censorship apparatus. Chinese internet slang makes extensive use of puns and parodies on how Chinese characters are pronounced or written, as illustrated in

5695-452: The material of high literature and adapts it to low ends"). Meanwhile, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot distinguishes between the parody and the burlesque, "A good parody is a fine amusement, capable of amusing and instructing the most sensible and polished minds; the burlesque is a miserable buffoonery which can only please the populace." Historically, when a formula grows tired, as in

5780-535: The modern parody of the 20th century. In the extended sense, the modern parody does not target the parodied text, but instead uses it as a weapon to target something else. The reason for the prevalence of the extended, recontextualizing type of parody in the 20th century is that artists have sought to connect with the past while registering differences brought by modernity . Major modernist examples of this recontextualizing parody include James Joyce 's Ulysses , which incorporates elements of Homer 's Odyssey in

5865-550: The most famous film parodists and created spoofs in multiple film genres. Blazing Saddles (1974) is a parody of western films, History of the World, Part I (1981) is a historical parody, Robin Hood Men in Tights (1993) is Brooks' take on the classic Robin Hood tale, and his spoofs in the horror, sci-fi and adventure genres include Young Frankenstein (1974), and Spaceballs (1987,

5950-621: The original's 'heart,' that heart is what most readily conjures up the song for parody, and it is the heart at which parody takes aim." In 2001, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals , in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin , upheld the right of Alice Randall to publish a parody of Gone with the Wind called The Wind Done Gone , which told the same story from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara 's slaves, who were glad to be rid of her. In 2007,

6035-445: The pastoral novels of Mary Webb which largely inspired it. In more recent times, the television sitcom 'Allo 'Allo! is perhaps better known than the drama Secret Army which it parodies. Some artists carve out careers by making parodies. One of the best-known examples is that of "Weird Al" Yankovic . His career of parodying other musical acts and their songs has outlasted many of the artists or bands he has parodied. Yankovic

6120-516: The period of the First World War (1914 to 1918) in a cottage belonging to William Rothenstein, next to Rothenstein's own residence Iles Farm, in Far Oakridge , Gloucestershire. The Arts and Crafts architect Norman Jewson remarked on his dapper appearance there: "At first it amazed me to see him, in the depths of the country, in war time, always perfectly groomed and immaculately dressed as if for

6205-579: The purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright." In 2006 the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property recommended that the UK should "create an exception to copyright for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche by 2008". Following the first stage of a two-part public consultation, the Intellectual Property Office reported that the information received "was not sufficient to persuade us that

6290-465: The time. At this time Wilde said of him, "The gods have bestowed on Max the gift of perpetual old age." In 1895, Beerbohm went to the United States for several months as secretary to his half-brother Herbert Beerbohm Tree's theatrical company. He was fired when he spent far too many hours polishing the business correspondence. There he became engaged to Grace Conover, an American actress in the company,

6375-548: The transformation of minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare 's drama Hamlet into the principal characters in a comedic perspective on the same events in the play (and film) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead . Similarly, Mishu Hilmy 's Trapped in the Netflix uses parody to deconstruct contemporary Netflix shows like Mad Men providing commentary through popular characters. Don Draper mansplaining about mansplaining, Luke Danes monologizing about

6460-700: The word parody in English cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is in Ben Jonson , in Every Man in His Humour in 1598: "A Parodie, a parodie! to make it absurder than it was." The next citation comes from John Dryden in 1693, who also appended an explanation, suggesting that the word was in common use, meaning to make fun of or re-create what you are doing. Since the 20th century, parody has been heightened as

6545-516: The wording in well-known poems he transformed the sublime into the ridiculous. In ancient Greek literature , a parodia was a narrative poem imitating the style and prosody of epics "but treating light, satirical or mock-heroic subjects". Indeed, the components of the Greek word are παρά para "beside, counter, against" and ᾠδή oide "song". Thus, the original Greek word παρῳδία parodia has sometimes been taken to mean "counter-song", an imitation that

6630-408: The writer and frequent parodist Vladimir Nabokov made a distinction: "Satire is a lesson, parody is a game." The Works of Max Beerbohm The Works of Max Beerbohm was the first book published by English caricaturist , essayist and parodist Max Beerbohm . It was published in 1896 when Beerbohm was aged 24. A collection of Beerbohm's essays from the 1890s written while he was still

6715-501: Was Eliza Draper Beerbohm (c. 1833–1918), the sister of Julius's late first wife. Although the Beerbohms were supposed by some to be of Jewish descent, on looking into the question in his later years Beerbohm told a biographer: I should be delighted to know that we Beerbohms have that very admirable and engaging thing, Jewish blood. But there seems to be no reason for supposing that we have. Our family records go back as far as 1668, and there

6800-468: Was also an aesthete and a somewhat witty companion, saved many of Beerbohm's letters. Beerbohm's best-known works include A Christmas Garland (1912), a parody of literary styles, Seven Men (1919), which includes " Enoch Soames ", the tale of a poet who makes a deal with the Devil to find out how posterity will remember him, and Zuleika Dobson (1911), a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford . This

6885-500: Was an occasional though popular radio broadcaster, talking on cars and carriages and music halls for the BBC . His radio talks were published in 1946 as Mainly on the Air . His wit is shown often enough in his caricatures but his letters contain a carefully blended humour—a gentle admonishing of the excesses of the day—whilst remaining firmly tongue in cheek. His lifelong friend Reginald Turner , who

6970-413: Was his only novel, but was nonetheless very successful. In the 1890s, while a student at Oxford University , Beerbohm showed great skill at observant figure sketching. His usual style of single-figure caricatures on formalised groupings, drawn in pen or pencil with delicately applied watercolour tinting, was established by 1896 and flourished until about 1930. In contrast to the heavier artistic style of

7055-518: Was impotent." Waugh also observed, "the question is of little importance in an artist of Beerbohm's quality." There was also some speculation during his lifetime that Beerbohm was Jewish . Muggeridge assumed that Beerbohm's Jewishness was certain. Beerbohm responded by saying that, disappointingly for him, he was not. However, both of his wives were Jews of German origin, although Florence was born and reared in Memphis, Tennessee , in an immigrant family. She

7140-418: Was never consummated, that he was a "natural celibate" or even just asexual . David Cecil wrote that, "though he showed no moral disapproval of homosexuality, [Beerbohm] was not disposed to it himself; on the contrary he looked upon it as a great misfortune to be avoided if possible." Cecil quotes a letter from Beerbohm to Oscar Wilde 's friend Robert Ross in which he asks Ross to keep Reggie Turner from

7225-408: Was published in the Oxford journal The Spirit Lamp by its editor, Lord Alfred Douglas . By 1894, having developed his personality as a dandy and humourist, and already a rising star in English letters, he left Oxford without a degree. His A Defence of Cosmetics ( The Pervasion of Rouge ) appeared in the first edition of The Yellow Book in 1894, his friend Aubrey Beardsley being art editor at

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