Pastiche

Elements of Definition

It is complex to define what pastiche is and how to distinguish it from other forms usually associated with it. Attempting to distinguish parody from related forms such as pastiche, Margaret Rose reviews different definitions of “pastiche” in English, underlining their negative critical connotations, due to the derivative aspect in art of imitation as opposed to originality. An example is Russell Sturgis’s (1902) definition, which is general enough to extend to other art forms: “A work of art produced in deliberate imitation of another or several others, as of the works of a master taken together” (vol. 3, p. 73). This is close to Dyer’s (2007) “pastiche is a kind of imitation that you are meant to know is an imitation” (p. 1). However, the latter insists on the spectator’s or reader’s point of view, whereas the former focuses on the author’s intention. Accordingly, the definition of humorous pastiche proposed here can refer either to an entire work or to parts of that work: a deliberate imitation of a style or genre, with an amusing effect.

Differentiating Pastiche From Parody

Pastiche is very close to parody and is regularly confused with it in the public mind because of the complex and mixed nature of all parodic works, which are humorous remakes of linguistic or artistic performances, according to Margaret Rose. In most practical cases, the two words are used interchangeably about any work that humorously rewrites a recognizable source or style. The French novelist Marcel Proust spoke alternatively of “pastiche” and parodie about his own imitations of 19th-century novelists; in Italian, Umberto Eco (b. 1932) does the same about his Diario minimo (Misreadings). Similarly, in Mikhail Bakhtin’s polyphonic theory of enunciation, pastiche and parody are effectively the same thing: the presence or imitation of another discourse in one’s own speech.

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