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Subject: ENGLISH Class: B.A. Part 11 Honours, Paper-111[DRAMA] Topic: The Development of Comedy Lecture No:118

By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga

The Development of Comedy

Comedy: • A dramatic literary genre generally defined as the opposite of tragedy and characterized by the portrayal of amusing situations featuring ordinary people in ordinary situations.

• Comedy often begins with a sad or difficult situation but ends happily.

• Comedy is a literary work that aims primarily to provoke laughter.

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• 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. • Comedy comes from the Greek word komoidia - komos meaning a group revel (i.e. having fun) and idia meaning song. Comedies were introduced to the play competition in 486BC. • Comedy a form of drama that is intended to amuse and that ends happily. • Comedy differs from Farce and Burlesque by having a more sustained plot, more weighty and subtle dialogue, more natural characters and less boisterous behavior. • English comedy developed from native dramatic forms growing out of the religious drama, the morality plays and interludes, and the performances of wandering entertainers, such as dancers and jugglers. • In the Renaissance, the re discovery of Latin comedy and the effort to apply the rules of classical criticism to drama significantly affected the course of English comedy.

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Comedy can be arranged in three divisions, -the old, the middle and the new.

Comedy

OLD MIDDLE NEW

1. FANTASY+POLITICAL+PERSONAL {OLD COMEDY} *ARISTOPHANES {COMIC DRAMATIST}

2. CHANGE FROM OLD comedy to NEW comedy, FROM POLITICAL TO DOMESTIC LIFE {MIDDLE COMEDY}

3. LITERARY AND ROMANTIC

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Old Comedy: • The Old Comedy was a form of drama which was a mixture of fantasy, political and personal satire, farce, obscenity and delightful lyric poetry. • It paid little attention to consistency of time or place or character and was not very interested in the logical development of a dramatic plot. • One of the greatest writers of the Old Comedy, which flourished in Athens in the 5th century B.C., and the only one with any complete plays surviving was Aristophanes (c. 450-after 385 B.C.). He wrote at least 36 comedies, of which 11 are extant. Reaching its height in the brilliantly scathing plays of Aristophanes, Old Comedy gradually declined and was replaced by less vital and imaginative drama. Starting from 425 BCE, Aristophanes, a comic playwright and satirical author of the Ancient Greek Theater, wrote 40 comedies, 11 of which survive. • Aristotle taught that comedy was generally positive for society, since it brings forth happiness, which for Aristotle was the ideal state. Aristotle divides comedy into three categories or subgenres: farce, romantic comedy, and satire. Also, in Poetics, Aristotle defined comedy as one of the original four genres of literature. The other three genres are tragedy, epic poetry, and lyric poetry. Literature, in general, is defined by Aristotle as a mimesis, or imitation of life. Comedy is the third form of literature, being the most divorced from a true mimesis. Tragedy is the truest mimesis, followed by epic poetry, comedy, and lyric poetry.

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• On the contrary, Plato taught that comedy is a destruction to the self. He believed that it produces an emotion that overrides rational self-control and learning.

Middle Comedy: • It was a style of drama that prevailed in Greece from about 400 BC to about 320 BC. Middle Comedy represents a change from Old Comedy, which presented literary, political, and philosophical commentary, to New Comedy, with its gently satiric observation of contemporary domestic life.

New Comedy: • It was generally considered to have begun in the mid-4th cent. B.C., the plays were literary, often romantic in tone, and decidedly less satirical and critical. Menander was the most famous writer of New Comedy.

Elizabethan Comedy: • In the sixteenth century, Christopher Marlowe contributed brilliant plays such as Tamburlaine (1587), Dr. Faustus (1588) and The Jew of Malta (1589). Marlowe was one of the best-known names of a group of dramatists known as the University Wits. The most famous poet dramatist was William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The Elizabethan literature was well-represented by his dramatic contributions. His genius actually springs from applying poetic language to drama. Being a creative man in poetry and drama, he realized early that the play must come first and the words however

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brilliant must be subservient to it. Shakespeare wrote various types of plays: tragedies comedies as well as histories. Julius Caesar, Othello and Romeo and Juliet is some of his famous plays. With the Renaissance, a new and vital drama emerged. • Shakespeare, whose comedies ranged from the farcical to the tragicomic, was the master of the romantic comedy. • On the other hand, Ben Jonson was strongly influenced by classical tenets and wrote caustic, rich satire. • The performers of Elizabethan comedy were not only expected to dance but also to be able to sing. The comedies of Shakespeare not only display with great skill many sides of human nature, but with indescribable lightness and grace introduce us to charming creations. ***

NOTE: [Socrates served in the Pelopennesian War, which primarily took place when Plato was a child and teenager (Socrates was about in his 30s when the war began), and ultimately was Plato’s teacher. Socrates was put to death, and Plato began to teach at his Academy, which was founded when Aristotle was about 3 years old. Aristotle came to study at the Academy as a teenager (Plato was in his mid-to-late 50s), and was Plato’s student until the latter died and Aristotle returned to Macedon.]

By:

Prof Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College, Samastipur L.N.M.U. Darbhanga Mob: 9934917117 E mail: [email protected] Website:www.sunitasinha.com