Comedy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup because it is in a list format that may be better presented using prose.
You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (April 2008)
Literature
Major forms

Epic · Romance · Novel
Tragedy · Comedy · Drama · Satire
Media

Performance · Book
Techniques

Prose · Poetry
History and lists

Basic topics · Literary terms
History · Modern history
Books · Writers
Literary awards · Poetry awards
Discussion

Criticism · Theory · Magazines
Performing arts
Major forms

Theatre · Music · Dance
Opera · Film
Television · Radio
Subjects

Comedy · Tragedy · Satire
Epic

"Comedy" has a popular meaning (any discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy). This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.[1]

The theatrical genre can be simply described as a dramatic performance which pits two societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye famously depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old" (The Anatomy of Criticism, 1957), but this dichotomy is seldom described as an entirely satisfactory explanation.

A later view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes; in this sense, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse to ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter (Marteinson, 2006).

Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, but there are many recognized genres of comedy. Satire and political satire use ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor.

Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes to critique that form from within (though not necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters. Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so called dark or evil elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comedic ways.

A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

The word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κωμῳδία, which is a compound either of κῶμος (revel) or κώμη (village) and ᾠδή (singing): it is possible that κῶμος itself is derived from κώμη, and originally meant a village revel. The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός), which strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking".[2] Of this, the word came into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time, passed through various shades of meaning.[3]

Greeks and Romans confined the word "comedy" to descriptions of stage-plays with happy endings. In the middle ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Divina Commedia. As time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter.[3]

[edit] History

In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in making fun at other people or stereotypes.[2] Aristotle, in his Poetics, states 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 from its inception.[4]

The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it has been carefully investigated by psychologists and agreed upon 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 Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

[edit] Forms of comedy

Main article: Comedy genres

[edit] Performing arts

[edit] History

Kaitlyn mcneill

[edit] Plays (theater)

Main article: Comedy (theater)

[edit] Musical comedy plays

[edit] Opera

[edit] Improvisational comedy

[edit] Clowns

[edit] Stand-up comedy

[edit] Stand-up comedy events and awards

[edit] Lists of stand-up comedy performers

[edit] By nationality

[edit] Jokes

[edit] Literature

[edit] Film

[edit] Television and radio

[edit] The First Couple of Comedy

This is a common nickname for comedienne Lucille Ball and her one-time husband Desi Arnaz. This nickname is based on the eight year success of their show I Love Lucy. Their co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley are known as the most famous second bananas in comedy and television. [6]

[edit] Lists of comedy television programs

[edit] Lists

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Henderson, J. (1993) Comic Hero versus Political Elite pp.307-19 in (1993) in Sommerstein, A.H.; S. Halliwell, J. Henderson, B. Zimmerman: Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis. Bari: Levante Editori. 
  2. ^ a b Francis MacDonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1934.
  3. ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary
  4. ^ Aristotle, Poetics, lines beginning at 1449a. [1]
  5. ^ This list was compiled with reference to The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (1998).
  6. ^ DESILU: The story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, 1998

[edit] References

  • Aristotle, Poetics.
  • Buckham, Philip Wentworth, Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
  • Marteinson, Peter (2006). On the Problem of the Comic: A Philosophical Study on the Origins of Laughter, Legas Press, Ottawa, 2006.
  • Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur Wallace
    • Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy , 1927.
    • The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, 1946.
    • The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 1953.
  • Raskin, Victor, The Semantic Mechanisms of Humor, 1985.
  • 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.

[edit] External links