Burlesque (Critical Idiom)

First published in 1972, this book provides a helpful introduction to burlesque literature, a term used by critics from the seventh-century onwards to describe work in which an incongruity between serious subject-matter and style is used to provoke laughter. It examines the four main types of burlesque writing: Travesty, Hudibrastic, Parody and the Mock-Poem, as well as dramatic burlesques.