M. Bradbury's conception of parody and its actualization in the novel “To the Hermitage”

The article is concerned with the conception of parody by the British writer and literary critic Malcolm S. Bradbury and its actualization in the novel “To the Hermitage” (2000). The conception was developed against the background of the general tendency in European and American literary criticism towards revision of the essence of the phenomenon of parody. According to Bradbury, literary parodying takes on culture forming significance in historical interaction of texts. The mechanism of functioning of this form is determined by the tendency to preserve the previous tradition through its distortion. The object of reconsideration in Bradbury’s “To the Hermitage” is Denis Diderot’s novel “Jacques the Fatalist and His Master” (1791). In its turn, this novel is interpreted as a remaking of Laurence Sterne’s “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” (1759 - 1767). The parody form of “To the Hermitage” serves the idea of representing multidimensional succession from Sterne to Diderot and further to Bradbury.