Travestier

The travestier conceives that it is a palpable mistake to suppose Homer wrote his great poems seriously,—he considers that they are “ludicrous,” not “sublime” poems.

It is the majestic simplicity of the great Wordsworth compared with the feeble and starveling attempts of his imitators, the harmless caricatures of his travestiers.

The strongest evidence for the view of Brighton Rock as play is Greene’s early and only “scholarly” book—on John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, the great Restoration travestier of the court and the royal figure himself; a rake and an atheist who played with blasphemy and may or may not have converted on his deathbed.