Conceptual Cousins and Sister Arts

Even if stylistic pastiche appears to be easier to grasp than the more elusive compilation pastiche, it is by no means an unprob-lematic literary form that could be effortlessly distinguished from all other forms of imitation and rewriting. In this chapter, I shall offer an overview of the characteristics of stylistic pastiche – from now on simply ‘pastiche’ – and its status as a literary term in jux-taposition to such related terms as parody and translation, among others. In addition, I shall in this chapter investigate the possibil-ity of extending the notion of pastiche as the imitation of style to other arts.

Related Literary Practices

My survey of the history of the concept of pastiche in part one showed how pastiche gradually parted company from copies and forgeries, with which it was associated in the eighteenth century, and was connected with parody, which came to be seen as its nearest equivalent among literary forms at the end of the nine-teenth century. This shift illustrates how concepts do not develop independently or simply in connection with their objects but also in interaction with other, related concepts. Contrary to how they are often presented in textbooks, dictionaries of literary terms and sometimes also in more sophisticated literary theory, the relation-ships between concepts do not form a fixed system of conven-iently exclusive meanings. Change in the scope, meaning or weight of one concept affects other concepts, and one concept may gradually be replaced by another. While investigating the par-tial overlap of or similarities between related concepts will inevi-tably demonstrate the intermingledness of literary critical vocabu-lary, it will also give us some grounds on which to distinguish be-tween one practice and another.

At the end of the previous chapter, I briefly discussed the similarities between pastiche and allusion from the point of view of their dual meanings. Here I shall discuss pastiche in the context of three different types of related concepts that are often used as points of reference when critics are attempting to characterise pastiche.²¹ First I shall look at terms describing the ways in which a later text may borrow from and transform an earlier text. These terms include allusion (in the sense of phraseological adaptation), citation, collage, montage, stylisation and translation, each of which constitutes a material transformation or recontextualisation of the source text (or a recognisable discourse or register in the case of stylisation). The following set of concepts – forgery, pla-giarism, hoax, mystification and simulacrum – pertains to various forms of deception in art and literature and offers a background for discussing pastiche as acknowledged imitation which never-theless retains some aspects of disguise or duplicity. Thirdly, I shall look at perhaps the most pertinent companions of pastiche – burlesque, travesty and parody – as different ways of understand-ing the imitative relationship between two (or more) texts. I shall end this investigation into related practices with a fairly recent term, fan fiction, that will offer a point of comparison for the study of the social aspects of pastiche. As my interest is pastiche, I have concentrated on those elements that provide useful analogies or points of comparison with it, which means that some other important aspects of the individual practices are left undiscussed.

I have sought to maintain (where relevant) a balance between the history of the concept, its customary usages and its applicability to the analysis of actual literary works. Situating pastiche thus in the larger field of literary terminology will help clarify its special char-acter as the close imitation of the style of a recognisable source

21 Systematic attempts to chart the relations of pastiche and other imitative forms can be found in Karrer (Parodie, Travestie, Pastiche) and Genette (Palimpsestes). More recently, pastiche and similar practices have been discussed by Aron (Histoire 281-83), Dyer (Pastiche 7-51) and Hoesterey (Pastiche 10-15). For similar terminological investigations from the point of view of the concept of parody, see Dentith (190-95) and Rose (Parody 54-99).

text, as well as reveal points of overlap with other literary phe-nomena.

In its more limited sense, allusion was shown above to des-ignate the incorporation into the text of a “short phrase reminis-cent of a phrase in an earlier work of literature” (Machacek 526).

Like pastiche, this kind of allusion operates on existing texts by modifying and recontextualising them. The result is often near quotation (528), which is also the often sought-after effect of sty-listic imitation in pastiche. What distinguishes allusion from pas-tiche is its locality: allusion is a relatively restricted adaption of an earlier text, rarely exceeding the length of a phrase or a line in a poem.²² When recognised, it triggers a connection between the two texts; when not, it becomes assimilated into the style of the text in which it is incorporated and has effect on the readers only indirectly. By contrast, pastiche seldom goes unnoticed. Either it is explicitly announced to the readers in the title or through some other indicators, or its stylistic difference from the context or from the text in which it is incorporated will alert the readers to the fact of imitation. Moreover, since its aim is to represent (the style of) its source text, a certain extension is necessary for the pastiche to be successful. The requisite length of pastiche remains a moot point. Some critics, like Jeandillou and Karrer, maintain that a pastiche can be as short as one sentence or phrase.²³ In my view, such brief imitative phrases might be more usefully dis-cussed as allusions (or parodies, if that be their tone) than pas-tiches.

A more extensive form of material incorporation, citation, means the transposition of the source text or its part into a new textual environment. Usually furnished with a source reference and with quotation marks that separate it from the framing text, citation is characterised by its locality. It is a limited instance of

22 The OED defines allusion (among other senses) as a “passing or incidental ref-erence.”

23 Jeandillou discusses an example of a title that he considers to be a pastiche in the style of Le Canard enchaîne (63). See also Karrer, “Parody, Travesty, and Pas-tiche qua Communication Processes” (37n).

textual incorporation from one context to another. If understood in this way as brief verbatim reproductions of the original, citations differ from pastiches that create the illusion of style through imi-tation and variation. However, when Proust quotes inaccurately from memory in À la Recherche du temps perdu, one may wonder if the “quotations” are indeed more akin to pastiches (see Genette, Palimpsestes 115).

Critics and writers disagree as to whether quotation is an approved technique in pastiche. Proust opposes it (Correspondance 9: 54), and, following him, Genette claims that pastiche “can never condescend to direct quotations and borrowings”²⁴ (Palimp-sests 78). By contrast, in his famous “recipe for pastiche” Reboux mentions that he and Muller always spiced their pastiches with au-thentic phrases from the authors imitated (“Préface” 18). Citation can be an effective means for a pastiche to evoke its source text, as is exemplified by the opening phrase of D.M. Thomas’s Char-lotte: “Reader, I married him” (9). The novel then continues as a quotation from Jane Eyre for a while, but gradually the pastiche mode takes over and the text becomes an imitation. Furthermore, quotation or direct incorporation is a crucial element in pastiche novels that continue an unfinished manuscript by a famous au-thor. Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker, Sanditon by Jane Austen and an Another Lady, and Thrones, Domi-nations by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh are examples of such cases: each novel begins with the more or less untampered original manuscript which is then seamlessly taken over by the pastiche mode. Unlike citation proper, the limits of the borrowed text are not marked in these works, and the claim to exactness of reproduction is consequently less strict (the pasticheurs may have changed some details in the original to enhance the continuity from the manuscript to the imitation).

Previously I pointed out the lack of established terms for literary works which incorporate and imitate elements from vari-ous sources. The art terms collage and montage are sometimes borrowed in literary discourse, although their visual connotation

24 “La citation brute, ou emprunt, n’y a point sa place” (Palimpsestes 102).

remains primary. Collage incorporates pre-existing materials on a two-dimensional surface, while in montage the disparate elements overlap or become (partly) merged into each other. In literary dis-course, the Cantos of Ezra Pound are often discussed as collages, while the appellation ‘montage novel’ is sometimes used of Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin, Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann or Cynics, a less-known modernist novel by Anatolii Mariengof.²⁵ This usage reflects the connection of both terms to the modernist aesthetics which they stem from, but it is not uncommon to use them in a more general sense. For instance, Ulrich Broich equates collage with intertextuality, stating that “the collage is a prominent form of literature (and of art in general) of our time” (251-52).

Collage and montage are sometimes given as synonyms for pas-tiche (or pasticcio), especially in the English dictionaries, which emphasise the compilation aspect of pastiche. Other usual syno-nyms for pastiche in this context are hotchpotch, medley, patch-work and potpourri, but rather than literary concepts, they are de-scriptive words or metaphors for the hybrid structure of literary works.

Stylisation was briefly discussed earlier as a term in Russian literary criticism (see pp. 77-79), where it is used in a sense very close to pastiche. However, this use is exceptional: in other lan-guages, stylisation usually means either conforming to certain ex-isting stylistic conventions or a representation in which details or realistic accuracy are abandoned in favour of giving precedence to style. Compared to pastiche, stylisation thus seems a less specific way of highlighting style: it does not imitate a style, nor does it target the style of one particular author.²⁶ Unlike the word stylist,

25 See Ryan (398), Saariluoma (“Siteeraamisen funktiot”) and Huttunen respecti-vely.

26 There are, however, quite different notions of the meaning and scope of styli-sation. The equivocality of the term is illustrated by two differing definitions given by Daniel Compère. In an article from 1992, he defines pastiche as ridicul-ing imitation (l’imitation moqueuse) and stylisation as serious imitation (“L’Entre-voix” 135, 137), in a manner reminiscent of Genette’s distinction between charge and serious pastiche. In 1996, Compère uses stylisation to mean the imitation of certain discourses (langages) without reference to any particular author (“Je suis

which is often used positively to describe a writer who “is skilled in or cultivates the art of literary style” (OED), stylisation carries a negative connotation of conforming to norms rather than devel-oping an original style or style particularly suited to the object.

My last term for the processes of borrowing and transfor-mation, translation, has recently been extended to describe any cultural activity which “carries” or “transports” discourses from one context to another (e.g., Godard; Lefevere), not just the activ-ity of translating texts from one language to another with the aim of communicating the form and content as accurately as possible.

In the first sense, translation becomes nearly synonymous with rewriting, which was discussed earlier as a form of intertextuality that also includes pastiche. Pastiche can convey old texts and styles into the present context, thereby translating, or making available and understandable, the textual conventions of the past.

It can also carry a style from one context to another, as for in-stance in Lodge’s Thinks… where literary styles are used to mani-fest and criticise a scientific problem.

Pastiche may also be related to translation in the more tradi-tional sense of the term. Since pastiche replaces the words and phrases of the source text with (near-)synonymous expressions, it can be regarded as translation within a language. Like a translator conveying a text from one language to another, a pasticheur also submits herself to the stylistic parameters of the original, which she seeks to retain in her version of it. Such close adherence to a model inevitably raises the issue of fidelity. How well is the origi-nal rendered in the translation or the pastiche? The expectation of fidelity governs the reading process and establishes a preliminary relationship of trust between the readers and the transla-tor/pasticheur. Since readers of translations and pastiches do not usually have immediate access to the source text, they have to rely on the translator’s/pasticheur’s capacity to render the original.²⁷ In a global culture, translations are so common and so

l’Autre” 101-02). His example, Rabelais’s imitation of the Latinate parlance of the Limousin student, cannot be considered “serious imitation” in the 1992 sense.

27 For truth and trust in translation, see Chesterman (178-183).

sable that trust in them usually goes without saying. We are only alerted to the possibility of inaccuracy if something in the transla-tion deviates from our expectatransla-tions. By contrast, the case of pas-tiche appears to be slightly more complicated. It goes with the idea of pastiche as stylistic imitation that the pasticheur has tried to imitate the style of the source text faithfully. Like good transla-tions, convincing pastiches can persuade their readers to accept without reservation the claim of fidelity. For instance, the transla-tor of Proust’s L’Affaire Lemoine, Charlotte Mandell, had never read Henri de Régnier, but confessed that after reading Proust’s pastiche of him that she feels like she “knew him perfectly”

(Mandell, n. pag.). Yet the lingering association of pastiche with forgery and a sense of immorality associated with the adoption of the style of another writer are prone to make readers initially more reserved about it. The conditions of pastiche can give rise to at least two kinds of suspicion. On the one hand, readers may won-der whether the imitation of the style of the source text is accurate enough. Does it sound right? Does it convey the characteristic features of the source text? On the other hand, the readers may be suspicious of the intentions of the pasticheur. Why is she imitat-ing this style? What is the point of this imitation?

The dependence of stylistic pastiche on a close textual equivalence and on a shared literary historical context has dis-couraged imitators from crossing language borders, and pastiches of texts originally written in another language tend to be rare.

When pastiching John Ruskin, Proust was in effect pastiching his own French translations of Ruskin’s works, and the rather awk-ward pastiche of the style of Arthur Conan Doyle by Reboux and Muller in À la Manière de… II relies mostly on parading stock de-tails from the original stories added to French cultural stereotypes of the English. (Has anyone ever heard of a gin-drinking Holmes before?) In their pastiche of Tolstoy, Reboux and Muller faced the problem of how to convey Tolstoy’s conspicuous use of French expressions in the flow of the Russian text. They present their pastiche as a translation in which the “originally” French words are marked in italics (À la Manière de… I-II, 25). As in the case of

Doyle, the foreign aspects of Tolstoy’s writing are wildly exagger-ated (witness such place names as the government of Kartimskra-solvitchegosk or the district of Ortoupinskaïeskaïa-Tienswlapopol).

Pastiches of a foreign author seem to turn into outright parodies more readily than do imitations of writers in the same language, where a more subtle stylistic play can be effective enough. It is possible to identify here a tendency to protect one’s own culture by presenting foreign styles and writers as strange and absurd, which is in direct contradiction with the idea of translation as bridge-building between cultures.

In fact, pastiches pose a challenge to the mediating function of translation: if it is well-nigh impossible to pastiche a pastiche, as I suggested before, how is it possible to translate a pastiche from one language to another, when in addition to imitating an imitation the translator must also try to mediate its cultural trail?

When Byatt’s Possession was translated into Finnish in 2007, the task was divided between two translators. The poet Leevi Lehto had to find inventive ways of conveying the Victorian pastiches and their resonances with earlier literature into the much more re-cent Finnish literary culture, which did not have a nineteenth-century equivalent for the kind of sophisticated poetry imitated in Byatt’s novel.²⁸ Even if Finland had had such poetic traditions, us-ing the marked styles of nineteenth-century Finnish poets in the translation would have interfered with the British context of the novel. In Lehto’s translation, the pastiche poetry comes across as distinctly archaic but vague in reference. The trochaic metre and many of the lexical choices create associations with the history of Finnish poetry (especially early twentieth-century poetry), but the topics and themes are largely alien to that context. Despite these inevitable changes, Finnish reviewers in general judged Lehto’s balancing act successful and functional in the context of the novel as a whole. Sometimes translators of pastiches can rely on existing translations of the source texts into the language they are working in. Mandell, the translator of L’Affaire Lemoine, had previously translated Balzac and Flaubert, which undoubtedly facilitated the

28 The prose of the novel was translated by Marja Alopaeus.

rendering of Proust’s pastiches of those writers into English.

When translating Maurois’s Le Côté de Chelsea into English, George D. Painter wrote that he has “tried, but certainly failed, to make [his] translation as close a pastiche of the immortal Scott Mon-crieff [Proust’s first English translator] as the original is of Proust” (8).

Like translation and citation, pastiche acknowledges its source text, whether directly or indirectly. The distinction between transparent and opaque forms of appropriation is, however, a fairly recent phenomenon, arising from the modern notion of au-thorship that emphasises the necessity of knowing the origin of the work. As I demonstrated in part one, the status of pastiche was rather vague in this respect, as the term pastiche was used of works exhibited under the name of the artist being imitated.

However, pastiche is now understood as a form of transparent imitation, which distinguishes it from forgery and plagiarism. A forger typically presents an unauthentic work as belonging to a famous author, while the plagiarist presents the work of another under his or her own name. In the eighteenth century plagiarism, was perceived as an accepted form of creation, provided that one pilfered from deceased or foreign authors (e.g., Marmontel 3:

119), but the heightened awareness of the moral rights of authors has rendered it a generally unacceptable and reprehensible prac-tice. Similarly, forgery is today seen almost exclusively in a nega-tive light, although it can be regarded as a necessary counterpoint for authentic creation (see Groom; Ruthven).

There is also another point of convergence between pas-tiche and the kind of forgery that imitates an existing source.²⁹ Since forgery by definition disguises it spuriousness, we can only have knowledge of failed forgeries that have been exposed to the public. When read against this context, how do forgeries differ from pastiches? Do we not read them as stylistic imitations of

There is also another point of convergence between pas-tiche and the kind of forgery that imitates an existing source.²⁹ Since forgery by definition disguises it spuriousness, we can only have knowledge of failed forgeries that have been exposed to the public. When read against this context, how do forgeries differ from pastiches? Do we not read them as stylistic imitations of