comedy

comedy literary work that aims primarily to provoke laughter. Unlike tragedy , which seeks to engage profound emotions and sympathies, comedy strives to entertain chiefly through criticism and ridicule of man's customs and institutions.

Although usually used in reference to the drama (see drama, Western ; Asian drama ), in the Middle Ages comedy was associated with vernacular language and a happy ending. Thus, the term was also applied to such non-dramatic works as Dante's religious poem, The Divine Comedy.

Evolution of Comedy

Dramatic comedy grew out of the boisterous choruses and dialogue of the fertility rites of the feasts of the Greek god Dionysus. What became known to theater historians as Old Comedy in ancient Greece was a series of loosely connected scenes (using a chorus and individual characters) in which a particular situation was thoroughly exploited through farce , fantasy, satire, and parody, the series ending in a lyrical celebration of unity.

Reaching its height in the brilliantly scathing plays of Aristophanes , Old Comedy gradually declined and was replaced by a less vital and imaginative drama. In New Comedy, generally considered to have begun in the mid-4th cent. BC, the plays were more consciously literary, often romantic in tone, and decidedly less satirical and critical. Menander was the most famous writer of New Comedy.

During the Middle Ages the Church strove to keep the joyous and critical aspects of the drama to a minimum, but comic drama survived in medieval folk plays and festivals, in the Italian commedia dell'arte , in mock liturgical dramas, and in the farcical elements of miracle and morality plays.

With the advent of the Renaissance, a new and vital drama emerged. In England in the 16th cent. the tradition of the interlude , developed by John Heywood and others, blended with that of Latin classic comedy, eventually producing the great Elizabethan comedy, which reached its highest expression in the plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson . Shakespeare, whose comedies ranged from the farcical to the tragicomic, was the master of the romantic comedy, while Jonson, whose drama was strongly influenced by classical tenets, wrote caustic, rich satire.

In 17th-century France, the classical influence was combined with that of the commedia dell'arte in the drama of Molière , one of the greatest comic and satiric writers in the history of the theater. This combination is also present in the plays of the Italian Carlo Goldoni . After a period of suppression during the Puritan Revolution, the English comic drama reemerged with the witty, frequently licentious, consciously artificial comedy of manners of Etherege , Wycherley , Congreve , and others. At the close of the 17th cent., however, such stern reaction had set in against the bawdiness and frivolity of the Restoration stage that English comedy descended into what has become known as sentimental comedy. This drama, which sought more to evoke tears than laughter, had its counterpart in France in the comédie larmoyante.

In England during the later 18th cent. a resurgence of the satirical and witty character comedies was found in the plays of Sheridan . After an almost complete lapse in the early to mid-19th cent., good comedy was again brought to the stage in the comedies of manners by Oscar Wilde and in the comedies of ideas by George Bernard Shaw . In the late 1880s the great Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov began writing his subtle and delicate comedies of the dying Russian aristocracy.

Twentieth-Century Comedy

The 20th cent. has witnessed a number of distinct trends in comedy. These include the sophisticated and witty comedy of manners, initiated by Oscar Wilde in the late 19th cent. and carried on by Noel Coward , S. N. Behrman , Philip Barry and others; the romantic comic fantasy of such playwrights as James M. Barrie and Jean Giraudoux ; and the native Irish comedy of J. M. Synge , Lady Gregory , Sean O'Casey , Brendan Behan , and Brian Friel.

Also important are the musical comedy, which descends from 18th-century ballad operas and the comic operas of W. S. Gilbert and A. S. Sullivan (see musicals ) and the slick, satirical, and professional comedy of George S. Kaufman , Moss Hart , and Neil Simon . Strongly contrasting with these sunny styles are the nihilistic, highly unconventional comedy, containing both comic and tragic elements, of dramatists of the theater of the absurd such as Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett and the so-called black comedy, often concerning topics like racism, sexual perversion, and murder, of playwrights such as Joe Orton , Harold Pinter , and David Mamet .

Bibliography

See B. N. Schilling, The Comic Spirit (1965); J. W. Krutch, Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration (rev. ed. 1949, repr. 1967); W. Sorell, Facets of Comedy (1972); M. Gurewitz, Comedy (1975); M. Charney, Comedy High and Low (1978); H. Levin, Playboys and Killjoys (1988).

Comedy, in its modern sense, differs from tragedy in having a happy ending, and from farce in containing some subtlety and character-drawing. The word, meaning ‘revel-song’ from the Greek comos and ode, was applied to the satiric plays of Aristophanes and also to the fabulae of Terence and Plautus. By medieval times it merely indicated any tale with a happy ending, particularly one written in a colloquial style and dealing with the love affairs of lesser folk. The Renaissance brought the term back to the theatre, but without its former satiric connotation. Comedy by its very nature resists translation, for it depends far more than tragedy on local and topical interest; innumerable comedies, successful in their own day, have soon been forgotten.

The Comedy of Humours, as practised by Jonson and Fletcher, was influenced by classical models. The Comedy of Intrigue, subordinating character to plot, originated in Spain and was practised in England by Mrs Aphra Behn. With it may be classed Romantic Comedy, which also came from Spain and reached its highest point in France during the Romantic Revival led by Victor Hugo and the elder Dumas. It is marked by exaggeration and violence and by an overpowering use of local colour, costume, and scenery. The Comedy of Manners originated in France with Molière's Les Précieuses ridicules (1658), and Molière himself said that ‘the correction of social absurdities must at all times be the matter of true comedy’. Pushing it to its logical extreme, he produced the Comedy of Morals—the correction of abuse by the lash of ridicule—of which the greatest exemplar is Tartuffe.

In England, the Comedy of Manners is represented by the plays of Congreve, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, and Wycherley, later classed as Old Comedy but now generally known as Restoration Comedy. The Comedy of Manners revived under Sheridan with much with and less indelicacy, but even Sheridan tended to be influenced by the prevalence of Sentimental Comedy, a type of pathetic play best represented by the work of Steele, which reflected the sensibility of the rising 18th-century middle class. In France this led to the comédie larmoyante which, after blurring the distinction between tragedy and comedy and ousting them from the stage, was in its turn eclipsed by the drame bourgeois.

In the English-speaking theatre comedy during the 19th century was virtually replaced by farce; modern playwrights such as Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Frayn, Neil Simon, and Tom Stoppard use verbal wit and robust humour to examine basically serious contemporary topics. The lack of true comedy is supplied by frequent revivals of plays by Wilde and Coward (perhaps the last writers of English comedy) and Restoration comedies.

The playing of comedy makes heavy demands on the actor, who must be able to suggest elegance, leisure, and a nimble wit. Its broader forms may demand great mobility of countenance and a command of dialect. All comedy acting needs an impeccable sense of timing. In the 19th century comedy was regarded as a specialized art and comedian and tragedian rarely trespassed on each other's territory; but the ability to succeed in both fields is now highly regarded.

For Greek comedy see OLD, MIDDLE, and NEW comedy.