Comedy

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Comedy is the use of humor in the form of theater, where it simply referred to a play with a happy ending, in contrast to a tragedy. A recognized characteristic of comedy is that it is an intensely personal enjoyment. People frequently don't find the same things amusing, but when they do it can help to create powerful bonds. Humor being subjective, one may or may not find something humorous because it is either too offensive or not offensive enough. Comedy is judged according to a person’s taste. Some enjoy cerebral fare such as irony or black comedy; others may prefer scatological humor (e.g. the "fart joke") or slapstick. A common gender stereotype that plays on this convention is that men love the comedy of The Three Stooges, while women do not.

Mel Brooks on comedy and tragedy: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an elevator shaft and you die."

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Comedy drama

Comedy is the term applied to theatrical dramas the chief object of which are to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and so on. As compared with tragedy it is distinguished by having a happy ending (this being considered for a long time the essential difference), by quaint situations, and by lightness of dialogue and character-drawing. As compared with farce it abstains from crude and boisterous jesting, and is marked by some subtlety of dialogue and plot. It is, however, difficult to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation, there being a distinct tendency to combine the characteristics of farce with those of true comedy. This is perhaps more especially the case in the so-called "musical comedy," which became popular in Great Britain and America in the later 19th century, where true comedy is frequently subservient to broad farce and spectacular effects.

In the 20th century, the lines between tragedy and comedy have become somewhat blurred. The classical formula of tragedies ending with funerals, and comedies with weddings no longer holds true. The blackly comic works of many modern playwrights, including Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Martin McDonagh can be simultaneously comic and tragic. This dichotomy is summarised in Woody Allen's account of a fictional playwright, Jorgen Lovborg: "First came the series of plays dealing with anguish, despair, dread, fear, and loneliness (the comedies)".

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Derivation

The word "comedy" is derived from the Greek κωμοιδια, which is a compound either of κωμος (revel) and ωιδος (singer), or of κωμη (village) and ωιδος: it is possible that κωμος itself is derived from κωμη, and originally meant a village revel.

In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in poking fun at other people or stereotypes.<ref>Francis MacDonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1934.</ref>

Aristotle, in his Poetics, tells us the same: that comedy originated in Phallic songs and the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly. He also adds that the origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated seriously.<ref>Aristotle, Poetics, lines beginning at 1449a. [1]</ref>

P.W. Buckham writes that "the lighter sort of Iambic became became Comic poets, the graver became Tragic instead of Heroic".<ref>P.W. Buckham, p. 243</ref>

The word comes into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia. It has passed through various shades of meaning. In the middle ages it meant simply a story with a happy ending. Thus some of Chaucer's Tales are called comedies, and in this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Commedia (cf. his Epistola X., in which he speaks of the comic style as "loquutio vulgaris, in qua et mulierculae communicant"; again "comoedia vero remisse et humiliter"; "differt a tragoedia per hoc, quod t. in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis"). Subsequently the term is applied to mystery plays with a happy ending. The modern usage combines this sense with that in which Renaissance scholars applied it to the ancient comedies.

The adjective "comic" (Greek κομικος), which strictly means that which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking": it is distinguished from "humorous" or "witty" inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic, have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed that the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Physiological explanations have been given by Kant, Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

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Notes

<references />

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References

  • Aristotle, Poetics.
  • Buckham, Philip Wentworth, Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
  • Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur Wallace
    • Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy , 1927.
    • The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, 1946.
    • The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 1953.
  • Riu, Xavier, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999. [2]
  • Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • Wiles, David, The Masked Menander: Sign and Meaning in Greek and Roman Performance, 1991.
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See also

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Forms

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Elements of Comedy

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Styles

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Historical or theatre

  • Greek comedy
  • Clown
  • Commedia dell'arte - historically, a form of improvisational theatre, chiefly from the 16th to 18th centuries.
  • Farce - most often thought of as theatrical, but has been adapted for other media.
  • Jesters - clowns associated with the middle ages.
  • Vaudeville - comedy performed in theatres that declined as television ownership increased.
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Definitions

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Comedy events and awards

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Lists of comedy performers

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by nationality

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Lists of comedy programs

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Other lists

  • List of comedies - theatre/radio/television and from France/Russia/Canada/Australia/UK/US
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See also

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External links

cs:Komedie da:Komedie de:Komödie et:Komöödia el:Κωμωδία es:Comedia eo:Komedio fr:Comédie gl:Comedia ko:희극 id:Melawak os:Комеди it:Commedia he:קומדיה la:Comoedia nl:Komedie ja:喜劇 no:Komedie pl:Komedia pt:Comédia ro:Comedia ru:Комедия simple:Comedy sk:Komédia sl:Komedija sr:Комедија fi:Komedia sv:Komedi uk:Комедія zh:喜劇

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