What Makes a Parody? A Comparison Between Father William by Lewis Carroll and The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them by Robert Southey

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, LMU Munich (Englische Philologie), course: Narrative Poems, language: English, abstract: This essay will compare Lewis Carol’s poem and parody Father Williams to its original poem The old man’s comforts and how he gained them by Robert Southey. The poem is part of Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland . But what exactly makes a parody? A definition by Vladimir Propp is delivered and followed by some information about the authors and the content of their poems. With the help of several questions, the poems are analysed syntactically as well as semantically to answer the question, if Carroll’s poem can be regarded as a parody of Southey’s poem.