Pastiche

Genre in art and literature in which an already existing form of art is imitated and combined (often at random) with other forms. (See also: collage). This article focuses on the literary pastiche.

Etymology

The term entered the English language via the French pastiche which derives from the Italian pasticcio meaning “pie” or “something blended”.

Origin

The origin of the genre pastiche is difficult to define. There have been blendings and borrowings of very different kinds in almost all realms of art in the course of time. The first to name a work of art itself pastiche was Marcel Proust. Proust wrote his Pastiches et mélanges in 1919 as a practice of literary convention (Bondy, 1989). He distinguished between conscious and unconscious imitation, “pastiche volontaire” and “pastiche involontaire”. Proust stated that writing pastiches had a cathartic effect and could therefore be used not only to practice certain literary forms but also to get rid of the original’s influence. Later contemplations of the genre pastiche concentrate on the form of the conscious pastiche. A pastiche can be distinguished from plagiarism as it openly imitates while a plagiarism is stealth of someone’s ideas which is done without reference to the original.

Author’s motivation and aim

The imitation of the style of another author’s work(s) is regarded by Wolfgang Karrer as a tribute to the original piece of art. This distinguishes a pastiche from the genre of parody whose aim it is to criticize or satirize the subject text /author / addressees, often to a comical purpose. Nonetheless, pastiches can have a humourous, serious or satirical purpose. For the author, a pastiche can also have the purpose of exercise or play. Generally, pastiches refer directly and obviously to the imitated text and therefore do not distance themselves ironically from it. For many postmodern writers, a pastiche can serve the function of a “new” genre by putting together elements from already existing ones; Frederic Jameson argues that this motivation arises from the fact that present writers are not able to invent any new forms and thus have to revert to the mere combination an imitation of other’s works.

A pastiche can also imitated a style from a certain historical period or a certain kind of text. According to Linda Hutcheon, postmodern pastiches “both affirm and subvert the conditions of history: history is exposed as a contingent narrative, while the will to historicize is confirmed.” (Taylor&Winquist 2001:275)

Characteristics

The pool of genres from which pastiches are made is not limited. A pastiche may refer to an original prose, lyrical, dramatic text or to letters, biographies etc.. The extent to which it refers to the original also varies. While some scholars claim that a pastiche should not only refer to a certain author’s text but to all of his literary work, for others the language of a certain period or the style of a group of authors can constitute the base for a pastiche. The extent to which a pastiche is found in a text can also vary from short passages to the entire text.

Examples of pastiches in postmodern literature

- John Fowles’s novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman (imitating Victorian novelists) - Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose (combination of detective fiction, historical novel and gothic novel) - Peter Ackroyd’s novel Hawksmoor