Literary notes about travesty (AI summary)
The word travesty in literature often signals a deliberate distortion or parody of a subject that is ordinarily revered or taken seriously. Writers deploy it to underscore both farcical mimicry and a trenchant critique of established norms. In some works, it masks irreverence toward the sacred or the politically significant, as when notions of justice or governance are reduced to absurdity [1], [2], while in others it transforms cherished epic or dramatic forms into humorous caricatures [3], [4]. Moreover, travesty serves as a tool to highlight the gulf between ideals and their actual, often disappointing, manifestations, whether in theological debates or literary representations [5], [6], [7], [8].
- To convict a man of misdemeanors for which he was not morally responsible seemed a travesty on justice.
— from Union and Democracy by Allen Johnson - Here was an enormity, an exercise of tyrannical power exceeding all bounds, a travesty on popular government….
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill - Among the plays mainly indebted to Marlowe are: Greene's "Alphonsus of Aragon," a comedy that is almost a travesty on the first part of "Tamburlaine";
— from Tragedy by Ashley Horace Thorndike - "Ruddigore" was intended to be a travesty on the melodramatic stage.
— from The Secrets of a Savoyard by Henry A. Lytton - This is but a travesty of the Greek Ares, the Roman Mars, or god of War.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway - That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemed like a mocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - Such a travesty on justice can not much longer abide in a country that has passed through fire.
— from Your Negro Neighbor by Benjamin Griffith Brawley - We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce
