Article: Burlesque

BURLESQUE

BURLESQUE, a popular dramatic and literary form in which parody, coarseness, mockery, and innuendo provide many of the laughs, has a long history. Literary burlesque may be traced back to Greece, where dramas presented at festivals were sometimes satiric and received with joviality. Some of the earliest burlesques were Batrachomyomachia (The Battle of the Frogs and Mice), an anonymous burlesque of Homer, and the comedies of Aristophanes (fifth and fourth centuries b.c.). Burlesque evolved throughout Europe, always relying on satire and parody. Fifteenth-century Italian burlesque mocked chivalry, while seventeenth-century French burlesque portrayed the clash between the ...


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