Generic engineering : a study of parody in selected works of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Tom Stoppard

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The following thesis develops a theory of parody as a multifunctional practice inrelation to selected works of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Tom Stoppard. The studydiscusses parody as a mode of generic engineering (rather than a genre itself) withideological ramifications. Based on an understanding of literary and non-literarygenres as social institutions, this thesis describes the practice of parody as one ofengineering generic or discursive incongruity with a particular cultural purpose inmind. In refiguring generic conventions, the parodist simultaneously reworks theirimplicit ideological premises. Parody hence comes to serve as a means of negotiatingwith the world through generic modification, and the notions of parodic socialagency and cultural work are consequently central to this thesis.Focusing on The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnestrespectively, Chapters Two and Three discuss Wilde's use of parody, and especiallyparodic word-masks, for subverting the aesthetic and social conventions ofVictorian England, and covertly propagating a gay subculture through parodic injokes.Word-masks - central to Wildean parody - entail the duplicitous use of anobject text / genre as a cover under which a parodist hides other meanings.If Wildean parody might be described as claiming a covert agency, Joycean parodymust, in contrast, be acknowledged as expressing deep-seated political ambivalence.Chapters Four and Five of this thesis discuss Joyce's Ulysses with specific referenceto his use of parody to conflate, relativize and problematize the dominant aestheticand Irish nationalist discourses of the early twentieth-century. Joycean parody also demonstrates parodic ambivalence and this is especially evident in what might becalled his parodic patriotism.In contrast to Wilde's and Joyce's use of parody for the expression of subversive orprogressive political views, Stoppard's parodies confirm conservative English valuesnot only in their reification of the English canon but also in terms of the ideologicalpremises with which they invest their hypotexts. Chapters Six and Seven examinehow parody can serve as one of the ways in which modem artists have managed tocome to terms with tradition. Focusing on Stoppard's Rosencrantz and GuildensternAre Dead and Travesties respectively, these chapters explore parody's capacity tofunction as tribute or homage to the writers of the past being parodied.Ultimately this thesis aims to demonstrate the continuum of parodic cultural work oreffects of which parody, as a mode of generic engineering, is capable.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University