The Parodies and Narratives of Atrocity of Anthony Hecht Anthony Hecht, a past Pulitzer Prize winning poet and a former United States Poet Laureate, is arguably one of America’s best poets of the post-modern era. Born in 1923, he rose to literary prominence in the 1950s and 1960s with the publication of two books A Summoning of Stones (1954) and The Hard Hours (1967). In his writing, he uses wit to create a situation for parody and uses irony in his “narratives of atrocity” (Hecht, Vol. 19 209).Anthony Hecht’s poetry is renowned for its examples of parody that are all creations of his “classical erudition and wit” (Hecht, Vol. 19 207). He attempts to show the contrast between artistic, false views of life and harsh reality through witty parody as seen in “Nominalism” and “The Dover Bitch: A Criticism of Life”(Hecht, Vol. 19 207). The wit provides poetry with strong, underlying meaning as seen in “Nominalism:”Higgledy-piggledyJuliet CapuletCherished the tenderestThoughts of a rose:“What’s in a name?” said she,Etymologically“Save that all Montagues Stink in God’s nose.” (Readings)Hecht creates parody in this piece by recounting a dramatic scene with a knowledgeable and humorous approach to the literature. The parody of Juliet Capulet’s famous line in Romeo and Juliet with such precision and craft as to fit both the meter and the classic Shakespearean language provides an example of Hecht’s use of wit to create a parody (Hecht, Vol. 8 269). Hecht uses wit and parody in a similar manner in “The Dover Bitch: A Criticism of Life” which is a parody of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” The tragic vision presented in the “The Dover Bitch” is of stark contrast to the romantic and idealistic vision of “Dover Beach” (Brown 121). Here Hecht shows through the use of wit th...
