Mock-Epic Poetry from Voltaire to Heine

我正在写一篇关于英语、法语、德语和（在较小程度上）意大利诗歌中的模拟史诗的比较研究，重点是1750-1850年。荷马和维吉尔的史诗是标准教育课程的核心，也通过翻译而为人所熟知。对史诗的戏仿甚至在古代就存在（对荷马的戏仿，名为《蛙鼠之战》，可以追溯到公元前世纪）。这一传统催生了模仿史诗，沿着的还有讽刺传统（用幽默的日常用语重述史诗叙事）和阿里奥斯托的意大利浪漫史诗，后者依赖于冒险、讽刺和幽默。随着严肃史诗逐渐被认为是一种过时的体裁，模拟史诗成为一种不是确认而是破坏史诗文化权威的方式。在18世纪，模拟史诗成为一种独立的写作形式，与日益过时的史诗只有松散的联系。这一时期的模拟史诗包括大量的诗歌，其中一些现在是经典，大多数都被遗忘或遗忘了，这些诗歌在他们的时代被广泛阅读和欣赏，不仅对学者来说，而且对今天的读者来说，都值得恢复。经典文本包括维兰德的《奥伯龙》、歌德的《赫尔曼与多萝西娅》、拜伦的《唐璜》、海涅的《阿塔巨魔》;伏尔泰的《普塞勒》作为一位主要作者的一部鲜有人读的文本，地位模糊。其他的，如拉契基的《梅尔基奥·施特里格尔》和帕尼的《死亡之战》，则鲜为人知，值得恢复。史诗以战争和国家命运为中心，英雄们将责任置于爱情之上，而模拟史诗则赞美爱情、感官和家庭生活，强调身体而不是灵魂。它有时对当代事件（特别是法国大革命）做出讽刺性的回应，再次将史诗价值观与当代现实相对立。它的情感范围从多愁善感到谩骂。它在很大程度上依赖于对其他作品的互文性典故，如果今天的读者要欣赏这些作品，往往需要进行学术研究。在比较中，这项研究还将揭示出在相关时期，欧洲文学在多大程度上被视为一个统一体;民族文学的划分不像民族主义时代那样重要，并且假设对其他文学的熟悉。因此，阿里奥斯托的影响，有时通过翻译，几乎无处不在的模拟史诗，和英语讽刺是广泛阅读和影响力在法国，德国和奥地利。模拟史诗是一种国际性的体裁;我们今天对民族文学的关注使我们无法将其视为一种独特的写作形式。传播：我已经开始与牛津大学出版社讨论这本书，他们对出版这本书非常感兴趣。

I am writing a comparative study of mock epic in English, French, German, and (to a smaller extent) Italian poetry, focusing on the period 1750-1850. The epic poetry of Homer and Virgil was central to the standard educational curriculum and familiar also through translations. Parodies of epic existed even in ancient times (the parody of Homer, called the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, dates from the 5th century BC). This tradition fed into mock epic, along with the tradition of travesty (retelling epic narratives in humorously everyday terms) and the Italian romance epic of Ariosto which relied on adventure, irony and humour. As serious epic was increasingly felt to be an obsolete genre, mock epic became a way not of confirming but of undermining the cultural authority of epic. In the 18th century mock epic became an autonomous form of writing, only loosely related to the increasingly obsolete epic. Mock epic in this period comprises numerous poems, a few now canonical, most half-remembered or forgotten, which were widely read and enjoyed in their time and deserve to be recovered not just for scholars but for present-day readers. Canonical texts include Wieland's Oberon, Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea, Byron's Don Juan, Heine's Atta Troll; Voltaire's Pucelle has an ambiguous position as a little-read text by a major author. Others, such as Ratschky's Melchior Striegel and Parny's Guerre des dieux, are scarcely known and deserve to be recovered.Mock epic not only parodies epic but offers alternative values. While epic centres on war and national destiny, and its heroes place duty above love, mock epic celebrates love, the senses, and domestic life, and stresses the body rather than the soul. It sometimes responds satirically to contemporary events (notably the French Revolution), again confronting epic values with contemporary realities. Its emotional range varies from the sentimental to the scurrilous. It relies heavily on intertextual allusions to other works, which often need scholarly study if present-day readers are to appreciate them.In being comparative, the study will also bring out how much European literature was regarded, in the period concerned, as a unity; the division into national literatures was less important than it became in the age of nationalism, and familiarity with other literatures was assumed. Hence the influence of Ariosto, sometimes through translation, is almost omnipresent in mock epic, and English satire was widely read and influential in France, Germany and Austria. Mock epic was an international genre; our present-day preoccupation with national literatures prevents us from recognizing it as a distinct body of writing.Dissemination: I have begun discussing this book with Oxford University Press who are extremely interested in publishing it.