| Title: | Burlesque |
| Original Title: | Burlesque |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 2 (1752), pp. 467–468 |
| Author: | Edme-François Mallet (biography) |
| Translator: | Colt Brazill Segrest [Universit] |
| Subject terms: |
Literature
|
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
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| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.054 |
| Citation (MLA): | Mallet, Edme-François. "Burlesque." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Colt Brazill Segrest. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2009. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.054>. Trans. of "Burlesque," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 2. Paris, 1752. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Mallet, Edme-François. "Burlesque." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Colt Brazill Segrest. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.054 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Burlesque," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 2:467–468 (Paris, 1752). |
Burlesque. Form of trivial and pleasant poetry that is used to ridicule things and persons. See Travesty.
Burlesque poetry seems to be just as modern as the name given to this singular genre. The Jesuit father Vavasseur, in a treatise he wrote on this matter entitled De ludicra dictione , assures us that the burlesque was entirely unknown to the Ancients. However, some authors speak of a certain Raintovius, who from the time of Ptolemy Lagus travestied some Greek tragedies as burlesque : but this fact, if it is true, proves the existence of farce in antiquity rather than the burlesque . Others, who want us to find traces of all the genres in antiquity, even the least perfect, trace the origin of the burlesque to Homer, whose Batrachomyomachia , they say, is composed of pieces of the Iliad and the Odyssey travestied and turned in ridicule, by the application of what he said about the combat of heroes to a war between rats and frogs. See Batrachomyomachia.
We consider, however, the Italians as the true inventors of the burlesque . The first among them who made himself known in this genre was Bernia , imitated by Lalli Caporali , etc. From Italy, the burlesque came into France, where it became so popular that a book in 1649 appeared under the title La Passion de Notre-Seigneur en vers burlesques . The genre was introduced into England in vain: the phlegm of the nation was never able to taste this extravagance, and we can hardly count two authors who succeeded.
Boileau, in his Art Poétique , condemned the burlesque , whose reign he was able to see, which he attributes to its novelty.
It seems, so said on this occasion an author who recently wrote on poetry, that the first dawn of good taste only had to shine through the tenebrous clouds that poor taste was intent on opposing against it. Effectively, was anything more contrary to good sense and to nature than a style that shocked one and another, and whose low terms, trivial expressions, ridiculous imaginings, formed the so-called grace, without mentioning the disdain that its partisans made known of bienséance ? We have difficulty understanding how a nation who is aware of bienséance and who observes it so exactly today, ignored it and in some ways even took honor in violating it not even a hundred years ago. Even though the Académie Française was established by the Cardinal Richelieu to bring back and fix good taste, some members of this company, such as Voiture, Benserade, etc. were still partisans of the burlesque .
It is, however, unbelievable, he adds, and it must be said for the honor of our nation, that this genre so justly disdained owes its origin to an error by which those who wrote in the burlesque were led insensibly and by degrees, not distinguishing enough the naïf from what was flat and buffoon , as Despreaux insinuates. Consequently, the burlesque was first employed to describe ordinary adventures, having more ease and simplicity than the affected, noble style used with grand subjects. And so it was confused with the naïf style which improves the simplest bagatelles. The apparent facility of this style seduced those who first became attached to it: but it soon degenerated into negligence; it led to lowness, and this lowness produced licence. This conjecture is founded: 1. on the fact that the largest part of the verses from back then consist in tales and 2. on the fact that contemporary authors, such as Balzac, confused these two genres, now so different. Exploited by the facility of a low style, they falsely persuaded themselves that they had found the art of writing with this soft ease, with this delicate banter in which Marot excelled.
See Marotic.
Everyone knows that Scarron put the Aeneid into burlesque verse, under the title Virgile travesti , and d'Assouci the Métamorphoses in the same style under those by the pleasant Ovid , and that today these works are just as decried as they once were enjoyed.