Burlesque (genre)

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For the populist entertainment see Burlesque.

In literary criticism, the term burlesque is employed as a term in genre criticism, to describe any imitative work that derives humor from an incongruous contrast between style and subject. In this usage, forms of satire such as parody and travesty are types of burlesque (Abrams, 1999). The term came into English usage in the seventeenth century, through French from Italian burla, burlesca.

In this usage, High burlesque refers to a burlesque imitation where a serious style is applied to commonplace or comically inappropriate subject matter — as, for example, in the literary parody and the mock-heroic. Low burlesque applies an irreverent, mocking style to a serious subject; an example is Samuel Butler's Hudibras, which describes the misadventures of a Puritan knight in satiric doggerel verse, using a colloquial idiom.

A burlesque literary performance is intentionally ridiculous in that it imitates several styles and combined imitations of certain authors and artists with absurd descriptions. In this, the term burlesque was often used interchangeably with 'pastiche', 'parody', and the seventeenth and eighteenth century genre of the 'mock-heroic'.

Burlesque is an inherently social form, one that depends on the reader's contextual expectations. When a reader approaches burlesque without expectations, and the comedy needs to be explicated in a preface and annotations, the effect is blunted.

[edit] References

• Abrams, M. H. (1999). A Glossary of Literary Terms. Seventh edition. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
• Thomas F. Hedin, The Petite Commande of 1664: Burlesque in the gardens of Versailles, The Art Bulletin December 2001
• Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957