CMEDY THRUGH THE AGES Sohail Ahmed

M. Phil {English Literature} Year-I, Semester-I

Acknowledge to

Prof. Dr. Asadullah Larik Ph. D, University of Pennsylvania, USA, Postdoc. (Calif.) USA

Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University Lyari, Karachi.

Outline

Term Comedy

Types Comedy

Comedy in Ancient Greece

Comedy from old English to Early Renaissance Period

Comedy in Renaissance Period

Comedy in Common Wealth Period

Comedy in Restoration Period

Comedy in 18th Century

Comedy in 19th Century

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Comedy

Comedy (from the Greek: kōmōidía or Komos which

means Revel or Merry making) .

In the contemporary meaning of the term, is any

discourse or work generally intended to be humorous

or to amuse by inducing laughter.

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Types Comedy Following are some types of Comedy

Comedy of Manners:

Verbal wit, skillful use of language to elicit humor from ordinary situations

Passionate plotting among upper classes

Comedy of clever speech and witty language

Burlesque:

Extremely extravagant.

Characters are now actors playing and messing around at characters. No

longer illusion or reality.

Audience members can be included in the humour or jokes.

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Types Comedy (cont…..)

Romantic Comedy

Commonly found in modern comedy.

These comedies are made as real and down to earth as

possible and the plays often involve adventure.

Unlike comedy of manners, the humour is derived from

the characters and their situations. These comedies

traditionally have happy endings.

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Types Comedy (cont…..)

Farce

Humour is derived from the situation.

The more extreme or impossible the situation is,

the more hilarious it is.

Black Comedy

Comedy often associated with extremely absurd situations and very non-dramatic. Scenes of death and violence are introduced casually and carelessly.

Sometimes called a tragic farce because it deals with unhappy situations that make people uncomfortable yet induce laughter from them.

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Types Comedy (cont…..)

High Comedy:

Comedy dealing with polite society, characterized by sophisticated, witty dialogue and an complicated plot.

Low Comedy:

Comedy that depends on physical action, broadly humorous or farcical situations, and often bawdy or vulgar jokes.

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Types Comedy (cont…..)

Comedy of Humours: (became famous in 16th & 17th C)

It presents humour character whose actions were ruled by a particular passion, trait, disposition or Humour (in term of Medieval and Renaissance theory of Humours)

Comedy of Ideas:

Characters argue about ideas

Characters use wit and clever

language to mock/tease

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Types Comedy (cont…..)

Domestic comedy

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Types Comedy (cont…..)

Tragicomedy :

is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. the term can variously describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or, often, a serious play with a happy ending.

Satirical Comedy:

The use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.

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Comedy in Ancient Greece

Comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy.

The most important Old Comic dramatist is Aristophanes, whose works, with their strong political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological implication, effectively define the genre today.

Aristophanes, (c. 446 BC – c. 386 BC) also known as the Father of Comedy, and the Prince of Ancient Comedy.

The first official comedy at the City Dionysia.

Menander (341/42– c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He was the author of more than a hundred comedies, and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times

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Comedy from old English to Early Renaissance Period

We didn’t see much work on comedy in Old English

Period.

Suprisingly Chaucer used word Comedy(comedye )

only once in his w ork.

Comedy as poem, sad start and happy ending.

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Comedy in Renaissance Period

Ralf Roister Doister (c.1553 ) by Nicholas Udall is considered is

First English dramatic comedy .

Two major writers of Comedy

between c.1590 and 1630 in England were Shakespeare

and Ben Jonson.

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Comedy in Renaissance Period { Shakespeare}

Shakespeare’s early experiments were The Comdey of Errors (1590) , The taming of the shrew (1594) .

The taming of the shrew was 80% in prose style , was chosen medium onwards.

A midsummer Night’s Dream(c. 1595-6) and the Merchant of Venice (c.1596) were the romantic comdies.

Much Ado About Noting (c.1598) was comedy of manners.

Twilfth Night & The Tempest are the finest examples of Romantic comdies by Shakespeare.

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Comedy in Renaissance Period { Shakespeare}

Shakespeare’s later comdies were darker comdies

called as Tragi -comedy.

All’s Well that End’s Well (c. 1602-3)

Measure for Measure (c.1604)

The Winter’s Tale (c.1609-10)

Cymbeline (c. 1610)

Shakespeare also include comedy elmments in History Plays.

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Comedy in Renaissance Period { Ben Jonson}

Renaissance theory about the nature and function of comedy is

borne out in the practice of Ben Jonson.

His men works in the genre of comedy were

Every man in his Humour (1598)

Every man out of his humour ((1599)

Cynthia’s Revels (1601)

Volpone (1606)

The Alchemist (1610)

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Comedy in Common Wealth Period

In this peiod , like other forms of Drama comedy was not

produced in England.

Moliere an immensive play writer from France wrote

classical satire plays like Ben jonson.

Don Juan (1665) was one of his best work .

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Comedy in Restoration Period

Restoration comedy kept English Theater alive

There were five outstanding writers

1. Sir George therege (1664-1726)

2. William Wycherly (1640-1729)

3. Sir John Vanburgh (1664-1726)

4. William Congreve (1670-1729)

5. George Farquhar (1678-1707)

What they wrote was predominantly comedy of manners .

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Comedy in 18th Century

Jonathan Swift, his most work reported as satirical .

Gulliver's Travels(1726).

Later half of 18th century , there ere two great Irsih writers

, who wrote outstanding plays comined some elments of

comedyof manners , satirical and sentimental comedy.

They were Goldsmith and Sheridan .

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Comedy in 19th Century

In general, during th 19th c. Farce proved the most popular dramatic form of comedy.

Oscar Wilde revived comedy of manners

Wilde’s most distinctive and engaging plays are the four comedies;

1. Lady Windermere’s Fan

2. An Ideal Husband,

3. A Woman of No Importance

4. The Importance of Being Earnest.

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Comedy in 19th Century

In same period George Bernard Shaw broke up and became hulk of

theatre.

His plays showed wide range comedies but one sort of another.

His majors are:

Pygmalion

Herat Breaker House

Major Barbara

Candida

Arms And Man

Man And Superman

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Comedy in 20th Century

The 20th c. has witnessed a number of distinct trends in comedy.

These include the sophisticated and witty comedy of manners, by

Noel Coward,

S. N. Behrman,

Philip Barry and others;

the romantic comic fantasy of such playwrights as

James M. Barrie and Jean Giraudoux

Samuel Beckett was most famous among them.

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Comedy in American Literature

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The earliest example of deliberate,

skillful and sustained comedy and

satire in American literature is 1637's

"New English Canaan" by Thomas Morton.

Another candidate for the 'founding father‘ of

American humor are Mark Twain and

the man Ernest Hemingway credits

with the invention of American literature.

References

Britannica, T. E. (2014, October 20). http://www.britannica.com/. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic

Cuddon, J. (1996). Literary Terms and Literary Theory . Middlesex: Penguin Books ltd .

Legouis, E. (1990). A Short History of English Literature . New York: Oxford University Press.

WikiPedia. (2014, october 21). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_humor

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