[Writer Name]

[Instructor Name]

[Course Name]

[Date]

Comedy

Introduction

We know little about the earliest history of comedy because, according to Aristotle, it was not at first considered to be as significant a genre as tragedy. Aristotle, however, was aware that comedy evolved from a primitive form consisting of satiric lampoons to the dramatic representation of “the ridiculous.” He recognized Homer's lost epic the Margites as having played a critical role, analogous to the relationship of the Iliad and the Odyssey to tragedy, in this evolution of the genre toward a mature dramatic form.

Discussion

In the Poetics Aristotle does not treat comedy fully, but he does offer a concise and perceptive framework for establishing a theory of conduct. Aristotle informs us that comedy is representation of inferior (phauloi) human beings, not inferior in regard to every kind of vice but in regard to the “ridiculous,” which is a species of psychological or physical ugliness. For Aristotle, an important characteristic of the “ridiculous,” is that, although it involves spiritual or physical deformity, it does not cause pain; he cites the comic masks of Greek actors to illustrate his point.

Played at the Dionysian Festival as well as the Lenaea in the 5th century BC (see Greece, ancient), Greek comedy by the next century was classified as Old, Middle or New. What the three forms shared were avatars of the laughable. Old Comedy, which is extant only in the plays of Aristophanes, was a rich blend of satire and fantasy, physical farce and subtle word play; it featured an ingenious trickster and closed on a lavish choral song and dance. Whatever Middle Comedy may be (scholars disagree), burlesque of heroes and divinities dilutes the comic brew. New Comedy depicted ordinary citizens beset by ordinary problems; the playwright's concern was with the individual. The plot of New Comedy was often structured on the most durable formula of all drama: young lovers separated by an obstacle are united at the grand finale. New Comedy thrived on asides, eavesdropping, quid pro quo and mistaken indentity, and it evolved such comic types as the old grouch, the pedant, the braggart soldier - often the obstacle in the path of the young lovers. Although Menander may not have invented New Comedy, he was admired for his deft creations. Admiration took the form of imitation by Plautus and Terence (see Rome), and, through them, by a host of neoclassical European playwrights in both Latin and the vulgar tongues. The scheming slave of New Comedy was the ancestor of Italian Arlecchino, German Hanswurst and the Spanish gracioso.

Before that harvest, however, dramatic comedy was eclipsed by comic theory, with Cicero offering a widely quoted definition of comedy as 'an imitation of life, a mirror of customs, and an image of truth'. In the Middle Ages comedy was associated with the vulgar tongue (as opposed to Latin) and with a happy ending; thus Dante called his great epic a comedy. On the late - medieval stage - both amateur and professional - comedy displayed a spectrum of techniques from slapstick ...