Parody, Scriblerian Wit and the Rise of the Novel ― Parodic Textuality from Pope to Sterne

Parody was a crucial technique for the satirists and novelists associated with the Scriblerus Club. The great eighteenth-century wits (Alexander Pope, John Gay, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne) often explored the limits of the ugly, the droll, the grotesque and the insane by mocking, distorting and deconstructing multiple discourses, genres, modes and methods of representation. This book traces the continuity and difference in parodic textuality from Pope to Sterne. It focuses on polyphony, intertextuality and deconstruction in parodic genres and examines the uses of parody in such texts as «The Beggar’s Opera», «The Dunciad», «Joseph Andrews» and «Tristram Shandy». The book demonstrates how parody helped the modern novel to emerge as a critical and artistically self-conscious form.

Przemyslaw Uscinski is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw. He has published articles on British literature, the history of the novel, the aesthetics of parody and translation. He has been teaching courses in Literary and Cultural Studies, British Literature and Translation Studies.