Parody Parodied

From:

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0811A&L=CLASSICS-L&P=R109&I=-3

M. Davidson is considering Southey's "You are old, father William," as parodied by Dodgson.

I would not, on the other hand, say the Aeneis is a _burlesque_ on _Ilias_.

Indeed, I was appalled by the OED's easiness to turn 'parodikos' as _burlesque_.

In the days of Judy Garland, that was such a bad bad bad word. It never caught up in England, I think, where they called it _vaudeville_ or _revue_. Or is it the other way round?

The OED cites a book by the Australian-born philologist Murray (I note
"Australian-born" because the OED needs to make a point that colonials are
lexically more creative than the upper-lip habitants of their blessed isle), on
'parody' (that's boring) and ... 'paratragoedia', if you ever heard of _that_.

So then I thought of 'paradox', which is not really 'anti-dox', so 'para'
seems weaker than 'anti' -- as in 'antiphony'. So when Lewis/Short translate
parody as 'counter-song' I find they are going a bit too far. To me Dylan's
songs are countersongs, counter-the-Establishment that is; also Joan Baez.
Hardly your average Hellenistic author.

It seems it's all _Hellenistic_, although in tragoedia, possibly the parody
was, specifically, the counter-melody (counterpoint?) sung by the chorus. I
don't think they were into duets. I cannot think of an operatic equivalent,
but there must be a few.

Consider Madama Butterfly, love duet, Act I.

Madama Butterfly is in _love_ and sings words to that effect. Pinkerton is _horny_ and sings counter-words to the same 'turn'. At least that to use Lewis/Short's definition, to the effect that a parody changes slightly the words of the 'turn'.

Shouldn't that be _tune_?

In "La cena di Tremalchione, ossia la parodia parodiata" I quoted from the
OED to the effect that for this author, the Greek Silla is parodic from
beginning to end, while the Roman satura is not.

So, whatever considerations we reach on greco roman parody (sic) it should display that difference.

I suppose it would be something to find if _Homer_, the first of them all,
is _parodic_ -- does he blow his own horn to a different tun and with words on
slightly the burlesque side? I assume Odyssey does.

According to this, the _genre_ of parody (I'm not sure it _is_ sine qua non
'imitatio', but surely they say, pardody is the highest form of flattery,
right?) would be poetry -- and the parodied song would be most likely lyric or
heroic. Then the parody would _not_ be lyric or heroic.

The paradox I proposed had to do with mathematics. If we have a song, s, and
the countersong cs, and then a countersong to the countersong (parodia
parodiata -- the phrase is actually a cite in the OED, 'parody parodied') then ...

Suppose there is a republican chant.

The democrats parody it.

The republicans parody the democrats's parody. I assume the message of the latter song cannot but be _republican_ in *spirit*. Or vice versa of course, and what we hear is the restored democrat tune. Or not.