Comedy: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:45, 15 October 2006

General Definition

Comedy is a term used to describe a play or performing art which generally ends in a happy ending. Webster's Dictionary Comedy describes a drama or any work with a happy ending. All materials integrated into a this form of literary work are included in effort to amuse an audience. It starts with a problematic, tragic, or serious situation or ludicrous event and uses humor to show how characters within the work overcome such obstacles. The term comedy also includes exaggerated forms of comic entertainment called farce and burlesque. Other forms of comedy are farce, romantic, satiric, or comedy of manners (Abrams 39). It can best be described as a form of humourous entertainment.

Types of Comedy

Farce comedy was designed to provoke the audience to experience a simple hearty laughter-or "belly laughs" (Abrams,Harpham 40). Romantic comedy developed during the Elizabaethan Age. The courses of such loves rarely run smoothly in these works but all is overcome in the end with a happy union (Abrams,Harpham 39). Satiric Comedy ridicules political policies or philisophical doctines or sometimes attacks deviations from the accepted social order (Abrams,Harpham 39). They do this by making ridiculous violations of standard morals or manners(Abrams,Harpham 39). Aristophanes used this as his preferred style (Abrams,Harpham 39). Comedy of Manners was developed by Roman dramatists Platus & Terrence (Abrams,Harpham 39).

Comedy in History

Comedy developed from ancient Greek festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of revelry. It was then associated with fertility rites and the worship of the gods(Cuddon 148).Greek comedy reached its highest development in the plays a dramatist named Aristophanes. His works contained the elements of mockery and mischeif to create amusement for his audiences. He created works such as "Acharnians", "Knights", "Clouds", "Wasps", and "Birds" (Cuddon 148).Roman comedies regularly dealt with youthful love. Shakespeare's preferred style was romantic comedy as well (Baldick 40). Since the original development of comedy it has always been associated with drama (except in the Middle Ages) (Cuddon 149).

What Others Have to Say About Comedy

Comedy is a term that is defined in so many ways that it is easy to see why it is one of the more difficult terms to define. Aristotle distinguished it from tragedy by saying that it deals in an amusing way with ordinary characters facing hard times in everyday situations (Cuddon 149). Comedy usually concerns petty human failings rather than the insurmountable catastrophies that are found in works of tragedy. Beckson and Ganz suggest comedy is any literary work, but especially a play, less exalted and less serious than tragedy, commonly having a happy ending (Ganz,Beckson 43). Vincent de Beauvis describes comedy as a poem changing a sad beginning into a happy ending(Cuddon 148).

To Sum Up

Most commonly comedy can be defined as a work of fiction in which all materials used are to amuse an audience. Before the happy ending, characters in a comedy must face misfortunes or disasters that they must overcome. Rather than feeling concern for these characters we usually feel confident that the situation will not get any worse than it already is. We feel the intended humor behind the calamity and we always seem to know that such obstacles will not prevent the character's triumph in the end. The term comedy is mostly just used for plays or for motion picture films, but it is also used in prose fiction as well as in narrative poetry (Abrams 38-40).

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H., Harpham Geoffrey Galt. "A Glossary of Literary Terms 8th Edition"The Thomson Corporation. 2005

Baldick, Chris. "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms"Great Britian: Cox and Wyman Ltd. 1990

Beckson Karl E., Ganz Arthur. "Literary Terms A Dictionary 3rd Edition"Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 1975.

Cuddon, J.A. "The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Fourth Edition"London: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998

Literary Terms

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-== Some Views on Comedy ==
+'''General Definition'''
-* This is the difference that marks tragedy from comedy: comedy is inclined to imitate persons below the level of our world, [[tragedy]] persons above it. . . . Comedy is, as I have said, an imitation of lower types; though it does not include the full range of badness, nevertheless to be ridiculous is a kind of deformity. The causes of laughter are errors and deformities that do not pain or injure us; the comic mask, for instance, is deformed and distorted but not painfully so. . . . The next best [[plot]], which is said by some people to be the best, is the [[tragedy]] with a double plot like the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i>, ending in one way for the better people and in the opposite way for the worse. But it is the weakness of the theatrical performances that gives priority to this kind, when poets write what the audience would like to happen, they are in leading strings. This is not the pleasure proper to [[tragedy]], but rather to comedy, where the greatest enemies in the [[fable]] make friends and go off at the end, and nobody is killed by anyone. —Aristotle, ''The Poetics''
+Comedy is a term used to describe a play or performing art  which generally ends in a happy ending. Webster's Dictionary Comedy describes a drama or any work with a happy ending. All materials integrated into a this form of literary work are included in effort to amuse an audience. It starts with a problematic, tragic, or serious situation or ludicrous event and uses humor to show how characters within the work overcome such obstacles. The term comedy also includes exaggerated forms of comic entertainment called farce and burlesque. Other forms of comedy are farce, romantic, satiric, or comedy of manners (Abrams 39). It can best be described as a form of humourous entertainment.
+'''Types of Comedy'''
-* Comedy is [[poetry]] that transmutes a sad beginning into a happy ending. —Vincent De Beauvais, (13th Century)
+Farce comedy was designed to provoke the audience to experience a simple hearty laughter-or "belly laughs" (Abrams,Harpham 40). Romantic comedy developed during the Elizabaethan Age. The courses of such loves rarely run smoothly in these works but all is overcome in the end with a happy union (Abrams,Harpham 39). Satiric Comedy ridicules political policies or philisophical doctines or sometimes attacks deviations from the accepted social order (Abrams,Harpham 39). They do this by making ridiculous violations of standard morals or manners(Abrams,Harpham 39). Aristophanes used this as his preferred style (Abrams,Harpham 39). Comedy of Manners was developed by Roman dramatists Platus & Terrence (Abrams,Harpham 39).
+'''Comedy in History'''
-* But our comedients think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong, for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight,  as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of  contrariety: for delight we scarcely do but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves or to the general nature; laughter alone ever cometh of things most  disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight hath a joy in it, either permanent or present. Laughter only a scornful tickling. —Sir Philip Sidney, “The Defense of Poesy” (1595)
+Comedy developed from ancient Greek festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of revelry. It was then associated with fertility rites and the worship of the gods(Cuddon 148).Greek comedy reached its highest development in the plays a dramatist named Aristophanes. His works contained the elements of mockery and mischeif to create amusement for his audiences. He created works such as "Acharnians", "Knights", "Clouds", "Wasps", and "Birds" (Cuddon 148).Roman comedies regularly dealt with youthful love. Shakespeare's preferred style was romantic comedy as well (Baldick 40). Since the original development of comedy it has always been associated with drama (except in the Middle Ages) (Cuddon 149).
-* Mrs. Suzanne Langer, in her brilliant and suggestive book ''Feeling and Form'' has called comedy the image of life triumphing over chance. She declares that the essence of comedy is that it embodies in symbolic form our sense of happiness in feeling that we can meet and master the changes and chances of life as it confronts us. This seems to be to provide a good description of what we mean by “pure comedy,” as distinct from the corrective or satirical comedy of Jonson. The great symbol of pure comedy is marriage by which the world is renewed and its endings are always instinct with a sense of fresh beginnings. Its rhythm is the rhythm of the life of mankind, which goes on and renews itself as the life of nature does. The rhythm of [[tragedy]], on the other hand, in the rhythm of the individual life which comes to a close, and its great symbol is death. —Helen Gardner, “As You Like It” (1959)
+'''What Others Have to Say About Comedy'''
-* The action comedy is based on some deviation from normality in incident, [[character]], or thought. The deviation, however, must not pose a serious threat to  the well-being of the normal, and a comic (or “in fun”) mood must be maintained. There is no subject, however, trivial or important, which cannot be treated in comedy, provided that it is placed in a framework which exploits its incongruities. —Oscar G. Brockett, ''The Theatre'' (1964)
+Comedy is a term that is defined in so many ways that it is easy to see why it is one of the more difficult terms to define. Aristotle distinguished it from tragedy by saying that it deals in an amusing way with ordinary characters facing hard times in everyday situations (Cuddon 149). Comedy usually concerns petty human failings rather than the insurmountable catastrophies that are found in works of tragedy. Beckson and Ganz suggest comedy is any literary work, but especially a play, less exalted and less serious than tragedy, commonly having a happy ending (Ganz,Beckson 43). Vincent de Beauvis describes comedy as a poem changing a sad beginning into a happy ending(Cuddon 148).
-* Broadly speaking, there are in the Renaissance two comic traditions, which may be  called “critical comedy” (or “bitter comedy”) and “romantic comedy” (or “sweet comedy”). The former claims, in Hamlet’s words, that the “purpose of playing . . . is to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn, her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and  pressure” or as Sidney phrased it, “comedy is an initiation of the common errors of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be; cause it aims to hold a mirror up to the audience, its <i>[[dramatis personae]]</i> are usually urban citizens — jealous husbands, foolish merchants, and the like. These are ultimately punished, at times merely by exposure, at time by imprisonment and fines or some such thing. The second kind of comedy, romantic comedy, seeks less to correct than to delight with scenes of pleasant behavior. It does not hold a mirror to the audience; rather it leads the audience into an elegant drama world where charming gentlefolk live a timeless existence. —Albert Gilman, “As You Like It” (1971)
+'''To Sum Up'''
-* One way of distinguishing between comedy and [[tragedy]] is summarized in Horace Walpole’s aphorism, “This World is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” Life seen thoughtfully, with considerable detachment, viewed as it were, is an amusing pageant, and the comic writer gives us  something of this view. With Puck we look at the antics in the forest, smile tolerantly, and say with a godlike perspective, “Lord what fools these mortals be!”  But in [[tragedy]] we are to a greater degree engaged; the tragic dramatist manages to make us in large measure identify ourselves with the hero, feel his plight as if  it were our own, and value his feelings as he values them, so that with Othello we must say “The Pity of it.” Yeats noticed this when he said, “Nor when the tragic reverie is at its height do we say, ‘how well that man is realized, I should know him were I to meet him in the street,’ for it is always ourselves that we see upon the [tragic] stage.”<br />One consequence of this distinction between [[tragedy]] and comedy, between looking-at and feeling-with, is that the comic plot is usually more intricate than the tragic plot, and less plausible. The comic plot continues to trip up its characters, bringing them into numerous situations that allow them to display their folly over and over again. The complex comic plot is often arbitrary, full of the workings of Fortune and Chance, and we delight at each new unexpected or unlikely happening. In [[tragedy]], Fate or Necessity rules, there is the consistency and inevitability, the “remorseless working of things,” that has already been mentioned. —Sylvan Bamet, “Comedy and tragedy” (1971)
+Most commonly comedy can be defined as a work of fiction in which all materials used are to amuse an audience. Before the happy ending, characters in a comedy must face misfortunes or disasters that they must overcome. Rather than feeling concern for these characters we usually feel confident that the situation will not get any worse than it already is. We feel the intended humor behind the calamity and we always seem to know that such obstacles will not prevent the character's triumph in the end. The term comedy is mostly just used for plays or for motion picture films, but it is also used in prose fiction as well as in narrative poetry (Abrams 38-40).
+== Works Cited ==
+*Abrams, M. H., Harpham Geoffrey Galt. "A Glossary of Literary Terms 8th Edition"The Thomson Corporation. 2005
+*Baldick, Chris. "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms"Great Britian: Cox and Wyman Ltd. 1990
+*Beckson Karl E., Ganz Arthur. "Literary Terms A Dictionary 3rd Edition"Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 1975.
+*Cuddon, J.A. "The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Fourth Edition"London: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998
-----
 [[Literary Terms]]
+[[Category:Literary Terms]]