"The Genius of Parody aims to question the still-pervasive characterization of parody as an invariably 'base' authorial strategy. Traditionally, little attention was paid to parody as a literary mode at work within even the least significant or valued traditions of English poetry, drama and prose fiction. Even less toleration was extended to recognition of parody within the writing of so-called 'original' or truly 'creative' authors. By focusing on a particular dynamic of text-specific dialogue that emerged among authors following the Restoration, this new study redresses the balance, revealing the extent to which parody played a significant and very often determining role in some of the most traditionally canonical authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."--Jacket.

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