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For the populist entertainment see Burlesque.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Burlesque.

In literary criticism, the term burlesque is employed in genre criticism to describe any imitative work that derives humor from an incongruous contrast between style and subject. In this usage, forms of satire such as parody are types of burlesque (Abrams, 1999). The term came into English usage in the seventeenth century, through French from Italian burla, a trick or joke, burlesca. The word first appears in a title in Francesco Berni's Opere Burlesche, works that had circulated widely in manuscript before they were printed. For a time burlesque verses were known as poesie bernesca in his honour.

In this primary usage, High burlesque refers to a burlesque imitation where a serious style is applied to commonplace or comically inappropriate subject matter — as, for example, in the literary parody and the mock-heroic. Low burlesque applies an irreverent, mocking style to a serious subject; an example is Samuel Butler's Hudibras, which describes the misadventures of a Puritan knight in satiric doggerel verse, using a colloquial idiom. Pure burlesque is simply comedy; the addition of Butler's ethical subtext has made his caricatures into satire,

A burlesque literary performance is intentionally ridiculous in that it imitates several styles and combined imitations of certain authors and artists with absurd descriptions. In this, the term burlesque was often used interchangeably with 'pastiche', 'parody', and the seventeenth and eighteenth century genre of the 'mock-heroic'. Burlesque is an inherently social form, one that depends on the reader's contextual expectations. When a reader approaches burlesque without expectations, and the comedy needs to be explicated in a preface and annotations, the effect is blunted.

On stage, the burlesque or travesty was a logical descendant of ballad opera and other forms of musical entertainments. By the Victorian era, it had become a mix of operetta, music hall and revue (then known as ‘Extravaganza’). For example, Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue made fun of the play Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo. The title was a pun, and the worse the pun, the more Victorian audiences were amused. ^[1] Composer Meyer Lutz was the musical director at London's Gaiety Theatre, preparing the music for many of the Gaiety's burlesques, including Faust up to Date (1888), Carmen up-to-Data and Cinder Ellen up too Late (a burlesque of Cinderella).

• Abrams, M. H. (1999). A Glossary of Literary Terms. Seventh edition. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
• Thomas F. Hedin, The Petite Commande of 1664: Burlesque in the gardens of Versailles, The Art Bulletin December 2001
• Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957

• Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911: "Burlesque"