Parody’s protean guises: the evolution of a concept from antiquity to modern French literature

Abstract

Among all of the notions subject to change, that of paro4J has to be principal among them. One could hardly fmd another word charged with so many different meanings throughout the ages, and which even today theoreticians and other writers on the subject understand so variously. If my subject were comedy or autobiography, there would be relatively little chance of being misunderstood as to the basic sense of these terms.