- travesty
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/trav"euh stee/, n., pl. travesties, v., travestied, travestying.n.1. a literary or artistic burlesque of a serious work or subject, characterized by grotesque or ludicrous incongruity of style, treatment, or subject matter.2. a literary or artistic composition so inferior in quality as to be merely a grotesque imitation of its model.3. any grotesque or debased likeness or imitation: a travesty of justice.v.t.4. to make a travesty on; turn (a serious work or subject) to ridicule by burlesquing.5. to imitate grotesquely or absurdly.[1655-65; < F travesti, ptp. of travestir to disguise < It travestire, equiv. to tra- ( < L trans- TRANS-) + vestire to clothe < L vestire; see VEST]
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in literature, the treatment of a noble and dignified subject in an inappropriately trivial manner. Travesty is a crude form of burlesque in which the original subject matter is changed little but is transformed into something ridiculous through incongruous language and style. An early example of travesty is the humorous treatment of the Pyramus and Thisbe legend in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Midsummer Night's Dream, A) (1595–96). After 1660, travesty became a popular literary device in England as seen in John Phillips's Don Quixote (1687), a vulgar mockery of the original work, and Charles Cotton's travesty of Virgil, Scarronides: or, Virgile Travestie. Being the First Book of Virgil's Aeneis in English, Burlesque (1664), an imitation of the French Virgile travesty (1648–53) by Paul Scarron. (The use of the word travesty—literally, “dressed in disguise”—in the title of Scarron's work gave rise to the English word, first as an adjective.) Later the French developed the féeries folies, a musical burlesque that travestied fairy tales.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
