Adaptation and Amusement

I couldn’t pick just one, but I want to think about Danny Lavery’s parodies of poems by Lord Byron. I’ll eventually pick one to look at closely in this post, but it’s hard to choose just one because they all appeared on the website The Toast, and that’s how I found them.

How Did I Learn about this Story?

I’m not sure exactly when I first started reading The Toast. Looking back now, I’m guessing it was just as others were also finding it amazing (the website was very successful, launching the careers of its co-creators, who met in the comments section of a different humor website, The Hairpin). The Toast still exists today even though there hasn’t been new content since 2016; I’m guessing I started reading it right as I was finishing my dissertation and starting to teach here as an English professor. I’m pretty sure I found it because a friend shared a link on Facebook. So, my best guess is that this was a social-media enabled friend recommendation. When I was on Facebook, I was friends with lots of people I met in graduate school and at conferences—we had a shared set of interests (literature and art history—much nerdier than mainstream) and The Toast created content that played around with those interests. Danny Lavery seemed to focus on the authors I most admired and he showed his love for these authors by making fun of them.

My Experience

So, how to describe my experience of reading short parodies on The Toast? The best word I can use to describe it is amusement or joy because I was often smiling and occasionally laughing out loud when reading. I remember immediately wanting to share it with my friends who I knew would be delighted as well. I could spend hours on the site scrolling through posts and feel better about life when I was done. If I’m honest, a bit of the experience was also the pleasure of “getting it.” I think the emotion associated with “getting it” might be confidence. I was aware that I knew things about literary history that not everyone knew and there was something satisfying about being in on the joke. I think that’s pretty common when people form communities around specific areas of interest (I get truck jokes like the one below because I’ve spent enough time with my husband’s friends)

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Maybe you follow a particular genre and social media posts from fans prompt a similar feeling—we can discuss. It might be that it’s less about confidence and more about a feeling of connection to a community.

Isolating Features

Okay, I’m going to focus on this poem by Lavery:

Lord Byron’s “Fare Thee Well,” or “I Just Think It’s Funny How”

[The original.]

Oh, well, A of all, fuck you, then,
and honestly, I don’t have anything else to say about it.
I honestly don’t.
I just think it’s funny??? how –
No, you know what, I honestly don’t have anything else to say about it.
I honestly don’t.
Even if you do, I’m just, you know, ZIP, the high road.

(By the way, there is a quote from Coleridge that just,
mmf,
PERFECTLY describes our situation, and like, YOUR WHOLE DEAL,
but why bother!! WHY BOTHER, EVEN. If you’re not going to listen to me
you’re certainly not going to listen to Coleridge.
WHICH IS FUNNY, because it seems like you LOVE listening to people
listening to other people and all the shit they have to say about me.
But whatever! It’s not important, it’s really not important
to get you to listen to me or Coleridge. WHY START NOW, right??)

I JUST THINK IT’S REALLY FUNNY?
How someone who spent so much time
resting their head against my chest
could end up caring SO LITTLE about my heart.
Like, for someone who spent a lot (like A LOT?)
of time basically two inches away from my heartbeat,
it’s kind of amazing how much you missed about it!
It’s kind of funny, if you think about it, and I do,
pretty much all the time!

I mean, it’s fine, obviously,
you don’t have to treat me right,
no one is going to come arrest you for it.
You might find a time when, like, life stops being so EASY for you
and you kind of wish that you weren’t a heartless bitch
(or whatever!!! I don’t know your life)
I don’t know, maybe someday you’ll get sick of being praised
for being so FOCUSED and HARD TO PLEASE and IMPOSSIBLE
and you’ll be like, oh my God, you know who had amazing arms,
was Lord Byron. That would be a shame,
if that happened, is all that I’m saying.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen.
By the way, I’m moving, so in case anything
gets delivered to the house for me, if I’m not there,
that’s why. I’m just telling you this in case some of my mail
shows up and you need to know what to do with it.
I don’t know where I’m going to be staying yet.
Probably – honestly, I don’t even know, it’s impossible to guess.
If you need to forward me my mail, just know that I’m super far away
and you should probably ask one of my friends –
one of my many friends –
one of my very many super loyal friends, lots of whom live nearby,
because I’m a VERY good friend and they all know what’s going on with me –
anyhow you can just ask one of them where to forward my mail,
if I get any mail at your house,
which used to be our house but isn’t now,
because I’m sure I’ll know where I’m staying by then and I’ll
definitely be sure to have told one of them by then.
So just ask around.

By the way, and as long as we’re on the subject,
you should know that I’m not even mad at you,
even after all the shit you’ve done to me that I’m not going to bother to go into detail over right now because you know it and I know it and we are both super clear on the specifics of the shit you pulled, so I don’t even have to mention it.
I honestly don’t have time to go into it all right now.
But you should just know, like for the record,
that I actually still love you,
like a lot, like a really incredible amount,
in a way that says more about the kind of person I am
than the kind of person you are
if you know what I mean.

Augh, this is already way more than I even wanted to SAY,
I’m honestly leaving in what is basically the MORNING,
and it’s crazy late already, so pretty much now
and it’s not like you ever listen to me anyway so I’m basically
just wasting time I should be spending packing for my amazing new life
in Greece
or like, wherever I happen to end up
who’s to say
whether it’s Greece or some other country
(I just hope you KNOW that if I end up dating a guy after this it has NOTHING to do with you?? like it is not a STATEMENT on you, please do not read anything into what I do with my life after this, if you happen to see a full-length oil portrait of me and I’m still wearing the earrings I stole from you it’s not because I’m trying to SAY anything so don’t overthink this, okay??)

ANYHOW please feel free to consider us pretty much divorced.
(I know I do!!! ahahhaa)
And I don’t know if you’ve read this but like
statistically, I mean according to studies, like actual studies,
divorce is a bigger stressor than being widowed even,
so in a weird way this kind of brings us closer together,
in the sense that things are going to get way harder for both of us
I’m going to call myself a widower, you can feel free to do the same
if you wanted my permission or anything.
Like, I am in MOURNING for you.

Oh, by the way, feel super free not to even teach our daughter my name.
It would save time, right? And that’s all I want for you, is just for you to
have a lot of time on your hands, to really THINK.
About whatever it is that you might need to think about,
anything that your conscience might suggest to you.
I’m not bothered either way, I’m honestly not.
I mean, she might GUESS my name, and if she ends up looking like me
(which, just objectively, I think we can both agree would be great for her,
leaving aside all the shit that’s gone down between you and me
over the last year. It would be great. For her. To look like me)
if she ends up looking like me people will probably say something about it to her
so she’s going to end up learning my name eventually
I’m not trying to rub anything in, it’s just that objectively,
MOST people know my name, and what I look like, idk if that qualifies as “famous,” just –
most people know about my whole deal, and they’re probably going to put
two and two together, so even if you don’t teach her my name,
SOMEbody will, and that’s not my fault.

If she does end up like me I hope you are a little nicer to her than you were to me
but that’s not my business!!!!
N O N E of this is my business at alllll, which should be just such a relief to you!!!
or who knows,
who honestly knows what you consider a relief!
you’re HARD TO READ

Anyhow, I just wish you the absolute BEST.
I hope SO MANY good things for you, and that
your next boyfriend can figure out how to make you happy,
if that’s possible, I sure hope that’s possible,
and there’s no point in talking about any of the other things I could say,
so I won’t.
Consider it my last gift to you!
(I’ve given you a lot of gifts, you probably forgot)

Anyhow I’ll probably be dead soon,
or at least I can’t imagine hurting worse than this!
Okay bye, hope you’re happpyyyyy

–Danny Lavery for The Toast

The nineteenth-century poet Lord Byron’s biography is fascinating and I enjoy his poetry (to be clear, I don’t enjoy all poetry from the romantic period). But the story I encounter when I read Lavery’s adaptation of this poem is Byron’s biography. Lavery takes one of Byron’s poems (one I’d never read before…or if I did, I don’t remember it) and makes it a story of a man who is very frustrated about a conflict with his wife but trying not to mention the things she did to make him leave. The general consensus is that it was Byron’s behavior that led to the scandals that forced him to leave England for Greece, but the poem (from his perspective) only focuses on the things his wife has done to him. He is hurt, but it’s also clear that he’s not a person who could recognize if he’d hurt someone else.

It reminds me a little of one of the first things I ever read by David Sedaris, “Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family,” where you are reading a family update Christmas letter written by a woman who is using the letter to passive aggressively attack members of her family, completely unaware of her own shortcomings.

Many of you, our friends and family, are probably taken aback by this, our annual holiday newsletter. You’ve read of our recent tragedy in the newspapers and were no doubt thinking that, what with all of their sudden legal woes and “hassles,” the Dunbar clan might just stick their heads in the sand and avoid this upcoming holiday season altogether!!

You’re saying, “There’s no way the Dunbar family can grieve their terrible loss and carry on the traditions of the season. No family is that strong,” you’re thinking to yourselves.

Well, think again!!!!!!!!!!!!

-David Sedaris, “Season’s Greetings to our Friends and Family!”

In Lavery’s adaptation of Byron’s poem, you have a narrator who is revealing way more about himself than he realizes he is, and the reader can see all sorts of flaws that he doesn’t see about himself. But even more than this, when I read Lavery’s adaptations of Byron’s poetry, I feel like I am seeing what Lavery sees in Byron’s biography—that he understands how Byron felt about those things that he was going through and he’s saying it in a way that we would talk now. One of the features is definitely that the language is updated to the way we talk now. And I just can’t get enough of that because it makes these fascinating stories from the past more relatable. And that is endlessly amusing to me.

• So, one feature is that the content of the poem is the same, but it’s conveyed in a way that makes it more explicit.
• Another feature is that the language is updated to the way we speak now, which is one of my favorite features of Lavery’s work.
• Another feature is that we can see the worldview of Lavery as he adapts the poem.

Lavery is choosing to focus on aspects of Byron’s biography and bring them into the adaptation. Because he shares his own life with readers, I’m familiar with his worldview. I’ve read a lot of Lavery’s work and even know how he feels about most human conflicts we encounter today because he was hired as an advice columnist for Slate Magazine and I read what he did there as well. I am aligned with this person, who has a lovingly irreverent approach to an aspect of literary history that is interesting to us both.

What Techniques Created these Features?

First, this is an adaptation—more specifically a parody. It has features of burlesque, which is taking something high art and making it low. The best example of this is that Lavery took the first line, which was

Fare thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:”

and making it

Oh, well, A of all, fuck you, then,
and honestly, I don’t have anything else to say about it.

That is the primary technique at work, but I think there’s something more specific happening here. There is an author of the parody who has an identity that is part of the parody. Maybe we could call it the evident hand of the adapter or something? I don’t know. What other things have been adapted where part of the humor comes from knowing the person who is doing the adapting? The first example that comes into my head is in Olaf Presents, when Olaf retells Disney movies and it is amusing because it’s Olaf doing it. My kid’s favorite part of this is when Olaf narrates how Mufasa dies in The Lion King because he points out how it takes a really long time.

This helps you see the story you might have loved in a new way—through the perspective of someone you like and respect. I think it’s fair to say I wouldn’t enjoy this adaptation if it was done by someone I didn’t respect—if they were mocking Byron without appreciating any parts of him or his poetry. I still need a name for this as a technique. Here’s hoping we can come up with something together in class.

The end!

Works Cited

“Jerry Wayne Longmire on Instagram: ‘Truck Astrology 2 #comedy #truck #trucks #pickuptruck #ford #gm #dodge.’” Instagram, 27 Feb. 2024, https://www.instagram.com/reel/C321eFpAPJS/.

Olaf Presents: EP. 3: The Lion King. Directed by Silvery Horse, 2022. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_p03iELpJw.

Ortberg, Daniel Mallory. Lord Byron’s “Fare Thee Well,” or “I Just Think It’s Funny How” -The Toast. 26 July 2017, https://the-toast.net/2017/07/26/lord-byrons-fare-thee-well-or-i-just-think-its-funny-how/.

Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family – Part 1 – David Sedaris. Directed by yoogrldude, 2009. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iWV4YJS-XE.

“The Hairpin.” Wikipedia, 7 July 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Hairpin&oldid=1233088109.