Tragedy

Tragedy refers to a drama in which a heroic protagonist meets an unhappy or calamitous end, brought about by some fatal flaw of character, by circumstances outside his or her control, or simply by destiny. Invented and developed in ancient Greece, tragic drama has had a long but sporadic history in Western literature. Yet the great tragedies of the Greeks and of the Renaissance rank among the most compelling and most fascinating of all the works of literature.

The Tragic Vision

The first and still the most influential definition of tragic drama was sketched out in the Poetics of Aristotle. For Aristotle tragedy is a unified action; it is serious, complete and plausible. It has action of substantial magnitude. It concerns the fall of a man whose character is good but not perfect and whose is fortune is brought about not by vice or depravity but by some error or frailty -- the tragic flaw. Its incidents arouse "the pleasure of pity and fear" and by so doing accomplish the purgation or catharsis of these emotions in the audience.

Contemporary Tragedy

Today a tragedy is still taken to be a work of high seriousness arousing the audience's deepest emotions. A protagonist is required for whom the audience can feel a fundamental sympathy. His or her downfall is the inevitable result of some major enterprise or decision; it is not caused by chance events. The downfall must shake the audience deeply and be felt as important.

Comedy

Comedy in this day and age is more attributed to films that are a farce of reality. Comedy is used primarily to describe a genre of humorous plays that deal with ordinary or domestic events and end happily. Comedy may involve laughter at a character who is a fool, a coward, a miser, or zany, or laughter with the rogue or trickster who upsets the normal social order for a time. Some modern theories of comedy have stressed the superiority that the audience feels to the character who is the cause of their laughter.

Ancient Greek Comedy

The origins of comedy as a literary genre are obscure, but it may have developed from the playful celebrations honoring the god Dionysus. Middle comedy is thought to have softened this satire by turning to a fantasy world of gods and heroes, but no examples have survived.

Ancient Roman Comedy

The comedies of Terence and Plautus, modeled on Greek new comedy, almost invariably concern the attempts of young lovers to overcome obstacles posed by an old father or some rich and corrupt person. A wily slave who outwits such stock characters as the pimp and the braggart soldier often aids them.

Renaissance Comedy

Comedy disappeared during the Middle Ages, although medieval drama contained comic scenes. During the Renaissance the plays of Plautus and Terence were frequently imitated. Machiavelli's Mandragola is a well-known example. The Italian commedia dell'arte, popular entertainments perhaps descended from Roman comedy, were an important factor in the development of later comedy. The actors wore masks and played stock roles in improvised scenes of farce and slapstick.

Elizabethan Comedy

The Comedy of Errors of William Shakespeare is based on Plautus's The Menaechmus Twins, but his other comedies are remarkable for their extension and variation of classical plots.

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