[tar-ancalime]

Forgive me if this is irrelevant, but:

The way we use the word "parody" now is different from its former meaning. Unfortunately for the pertinence of my comments, though, my knowledge of the subject is confined to music--I don't know if there was ever a literary equivalent of this.

In the Renaissance, many composers wrote works called Parody Masses. A Parody Mass was a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass using an existing tune (often a secular song) as the cantus firmus, or underlying melody. These Masses were not, of course, intended to poke fun at either the original tune or the Mass itself; their intent was rather to bring something recognizable to the masses into the Mass (sorry, I couldn't resist!). In effect, the Parody Mass made the Mass more accessible to the congregants, most of whom could not speak Latin. One particular tune "L'Homme Armee" was so popular that just about every composer in France wrote a Mass on it.

I wonder if there is any vestige of that left in modern parodies--do they serve any kind of purpose in bringing some part of the original to people who might not otherwise understand or even encounter it? Or are they so insular as to be understandable only to those who already know and love the original work?