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Parody, according to F. R. Leavis, demeaned the achievements of the writer being parodied. On the other hand English literature is full of parodists – from Thackeray and Max Beerbohm to more recent exponents such as Craig Brown – whose work confirms that top-class parody is actually a form of literary criticism, exposing a writer’s quirks and limitations with a precision that may be just as valuable as a full-blown critical essay. Here D. J. Taylor, novelist, biographer and author of Private Eye’s long-running What You Didn’t Miss spot, and John Crace, who writes the Guardian’s Digested Read column, discuss the nature of parody, great parodists of the past, the uses to which it can be put and the idea, canvassed by Craig Brown, that large amounts modern life are so absurd and ridiculous as to be increasingly ‘beyond’ the parodist’s scope.