Why are pastiches not subject to more commentary? The specialization answer Author: Terence Rajivan Edward Abstract. Some distinguished literary works are pastiches or involve pastiches. Before postmodernism, these pastiches are hardly subject to any explicit commentary by critics. Even within the period or trends designated postmodernism, the quality of these pastiches as imitations is generally not assessed: how close they get to the original style. An explanation is that specialization puts most researchers in a bad position to do this: one ideally needs to be a specialist in both original author and imitator. Draft version: Version 2 (12th September 2026; v1 31st August 2022). PhilPapers PDF available at: https://philpapers.org/rec/EDWWAP-4 Acknowledgement: Google docs. I don't specialize in Beerbohm, Max But to the earlier essayist I pay some tax Why are some literary works subject to much commentary and others to little? Is it a reliable indicator of esteem? A commentator on Victorian literature observes that some novels which are less esteemed from that period are subject to a lot of commentary (Guy 1996: 3). Why do they attract so much attention compared to some more esteemed works? But I shall not restrict myself to Victorian times below. I wish to focus on rewarding imitations of literary authors in general, in a prestigious sense of the word "literary." (I should say that being rewarding does not imply being convincing here.) These imitations are generally not assessed in any detail in terms of how convincing they are. The case of Max Beerbohm imitating Joseph Conrad is helpful for realizing an explanation for why. This is the opening of Beerbohm's imitation from A Christmas Garland: "The hut in which slept the white man was on a clearing between the forest and the river. Silence, the silence murmurous and unquiet of a tropical night, brooded over the hut that, baked through by the sun, sweated a vapour beneath the cynical light of the stars. Mahamo lay rigid and watchful at the hut's mouth. In his upturned eyes, and along the polished surface of his lean body black and immobile, the stars were reflected, creating an illusion of themselves who are illusions." (1912: 125) Yes, this sounds like Joseph Conrad in certain respects, but not in others. What respects is it the same and what respects different? Consider this detail, for example. Why does Beerbohm drop the comma before "black". Is it just an acceptable absence or an aping by this careful stylist of how Conrad uses the comma? (After making a draft of this article public, in 2022, Hunter Dukes had an article published describing Beerbohm's imitations masterful, and recording praise by contemporaries, but there is a glaring difference between Beerbohm and Conrad: no mere comma difference! See Edward 2022.) The obvious problem with getting an evaluation of this and other esteemed pastiches is that the ideal qualification is being a specialist in both authors and where do you find that? It is easy enough to find a Joseph Conrad specialist, somewhat harder to find a Max Beerbohm specialist, though he is admired as an essayist (Woolf 1925); but where to find both? Most critics have a ready excuse: "I cannot do it, because I don't have a suitable background for the task." In general, the value attached to specialization and the ideal qualifications required for commenting on pastiches – specialization in both the original author and the pasticheur – lead one to predict a shortage of commentary.[1] (The Conrad specialist may, furthermore, feel that commentary on such a piece is more an examination for them than the pasticheur. "Silence, the silence murmurous and unquiet of a tropical night, brooded over the hut that, baked through by the sun, sweated a vapour beneath the cynical light of the stars": is that not Conrad and, if not, why not? "Conrad was a man of the seas, not an Oxford sophisticate who suddenly decided to make literary preparations for outer space!"???) References Beerbohm, Max. 1912. The Feast. In A Christmas Garland. London: William Heinemann. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14667/14667-h/14667-h.htm Calvino, Italo. (translated by William Weaver) 1981. If on a winter's night a traveler. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Available at: https://archive.org/details/ifonwintersnight0000calv Dellacasa, Claudia. 2023. Calvino and Japanese Gardens: A 'Trajectivity' between the Human and More-than-Human. Italian Studies, 78(2): 228–241. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00751634.2023.2217596#d1e125 Dukes, Hunter. 2023. Wreathed in Pastiche: Max Beerbohm's Christmas Garland (1912). The Public Domain Review November 30th 2023. Available at: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/christmas-garland/ Eagleton, Terry. 1996 (second ed.). Literary Theory. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/35100409/Literary_theory_an_introduction_terry_eagleton Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2022. Beyond micro analysis of pastiche: Max Beerbohm's imitation of Joseph Conrad. Available at: https://philpapers.org/archive/EDWBMA.pdf Guy, Josephine M. 1996. The Victorian Social Problem Novel. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Mishima, Yukio (translated by Ivan Morris). 1959. Temple of the Golden Pavilion. London: Secker and Warburg. Available at: https://archive.org/details/templeofgolden00mish Smith, Adam. 1904 (originally 1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3300/pg3300-images.html (A classic text regarding the recommendation to specialize, though it was recommended before as well.) Tanizaki, Junichiro. (translated by Anthony H Chambers). 1985. Naomi. New York: Alfred A Knopf. Available at: https://archive.org/details/naominovel00tani/page/n5/mode/2up Woolf, Virginia. 1925. The Modern Essay. In The Common Reader, First Series. Available at: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300031h.html#C18 Also: "Everything but the girl" is the name of a popular music duo, whose most famous song features the lyrics "And I miss you / Like the deserts miss the rain." Everything but the girl. 1994. Missing. Songwriters: Tracey Thorne and Ben Watt. Producers: Tracey Thorne, Ben Watt, and John Coxon. Label: Blanco Y Negro. ________________ [1] Pastiche is more mainstream since postmodernism (see Eagleton 1996: 201), but I believe it is still very hard to find commentaries on a pastiche. Where, for example, can I find an assessment of Italo Calvino's famous Japanese chapter, for example – how good it is as an imitation? (This paper was drafted and put online in 2022, with this footnote, and in 2023 an article by Claudia Dellacasa appeared, entitled "Calvino and Japanese Gardens: A 'Trajectivity' between the Human and More-than-Human". She surely has sufficient knowledge for evaluating the pastiche, but she does not appear to have much literature to draw on (and a loyalty problem perhaps??? Well, it doesn't deter some some…). I wish to register that in English, Calvino's imitation sounds more like Mishima than Tanizaki and Kawabata: authors she focused on more. And Dellacasa does not register this glaring difference: a docile daughter figure, not the "unruly" females of Temple of the Golden Pavilion and Naomi, etc. "I am working with an unusual reading of the daughter"??? Seems more like "Everything but the girl".)