burlesque 55
Literary genre that from the sixteenth to seventeenth century shows dignified and socially accepted situations in ridiculous and deacralized form. The same sense had for its stage version in the early nineteenth century, although already by the twentieth century it had a mainly erotic and sexual content, which some called neoburlesque to differentiate it from the original. The name comes from French, although it originates from Burlesque Italian ( "with mockery"). See vaudeville, cabaret, music hall, extravaganza.