Parody: Another Revision

The vast diversity of the proposed definitions of parody, both before and after the twentieth century, can be an emblem of the lack of a thorough agreement amongst the literary critics about the definition of this literary technique (genre?!). while there is not a comprehensive all-accepted definition of parody, modern and postmodern literatures both exhibit a wide application of it. after looking at the definition of parody under bakhtin's dialogic concepts, genette's structuralist viewpoints, and barthes's poststructuralist notions this study endeavours to put forward a more comprehensive and more applicable definition of parody mainly based on bakhtin's dialogic criticism. parody then can be defined as a deliberate imitation or transformation of a socio-cultural product (including literary and non-literary texts, and utterance in its very broad bakhtinian understanding of it) that recreates its original subject having at least a playful stance towards it.