comedy

Noun Comedy 1. a. A dramatic work that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone and that usually contains a happy resolution of the thematic conflict. b. The genre made up of such works. 2. A literary or cinematic work of a comic nature or that uses the themes or methods of comedy. 3. Popular entertainment composed of jokes, satire, or humorous performance. 4. The art of composing or performing comedy. 5. A humorous element of life or literature: the human comedy of political campaigns. 6. A humorous occurrence. Idioms comedy of errors A ludicrous event or sequence of events: The candidate's campaign turned out to be a political comedy of errors. Etymology Middle English comedie, from Medieval Latin c*m*dia, from Latin c*moedia, from Greek k*m*idia, from k*m*idos, comic actor : k*mos, revel + aoidos, singer (from aeidein, to sing; see wed-2 in Indo-European roots).

Humor being subjective, one may or may not find something humorous because it is either too offensive or not offensive enough. Comedy is judged according to a person’s taste. Some enjoy cerebral fare such as irony or black comedy; others may prefer scatological humor (e.g. the "fart joke") or slapstick. A common gender stereotype that plays on this convention is that men love the comedy of The Three Stooges, while women do not.

Mel Brooks on comedy and tragedy: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an elevator shaft and die."

Comedy drama

Comedy is the term applied to theatrical dramas, the chief object of which are to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and so on. As compared with tragedy, it is distinguished by having a (the comedies)".

Derivation

The word "comedy" is derived from the Greek κωμοιδια, which is a compound either of κωμος (Classical Greek κῶμος) (revel) and ωιδος (singer), or of κωμη (village) and ωιδος: it is possible that κωμος itself is derived from κωμη, and originally meant a village revel.

In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in poking fun at other people or stereotypes.^[1]

Aristotle, in his Poetics, tells us the same: 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.^[2]

P.W. Buckham writes that "the lighter sort of Iambic became Comic poets, the graver became Tragic instead of Heroic".^[3]

The word comes into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia. It has passed through various shades of meaning. In the middle ages it meant simply a story with a happy ending. Thus some of Chaucer's tales are called comedies, and in this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Commedia (cf. his Epistola X., in which he speaks of the comic style as "loqutio vulgaris, in qua et mulierculae communicant"; again "comoedia vero remisse et humiliter"; "differt a tragoedia per hoc, quod t. in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis"). Subsequently the term is applied to mystery plays with a happy ending. The modern usage combines this sense with that in which Renaissance scholars applied it to the ancient comedies.

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": it is distinguished from "humorous" or "witty" inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic, have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed that 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 Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Physiological explanations have been given by Kant, Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

Notes

References

• Aristotle, Poetics.
• Buckham, Philip Wentworth, Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
• Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur Wallace
  • Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy , 1927.
  • The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, 1946.
  • The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 1953.
• 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.

See also

Forms

• Improvisational comedy
• Stand-up comedy
  • Alternative comedy - a largely British term relating to comedians in the ascendant throughout the 1980s and beyond.
  • Impressionists
  • One-Liner - a type of standup comedy where the comedian will tell many jokes that are one or two sentences long. Example: Mitch Hedberg
  • Comedy genres - different forms of Stand-up comedy.
• Sketch comedy - short comedy scenes as in contrast to sitcom.
• Television comedy and Radio comedy
  • Situation comedy
• Comedy film
  • gross-out film
  • Parody film
  • Horror film
  • romantic comedy film
  • screwball comedy film
  • slapstick film
  • splatstick film (sic)
  • anarchic comedy film
• Comic novel
• Musical comedy
• Tragicomedy
• Dramedy (AKA Comedy-drama)

Elements of Comedy

• Comic timing
• Slapstick
• Pregnant pause

Styles

• Black comedy
• Satire
• Parody
• Political Satire
• Adage
• Irony
• Alternative Comedy

Historical or theatre

• Greek comedy
• Clown
• Commedia dell'arte - historically, a form of improvisational theatre, chiefly from the 16th to 18th centuries.
• Farce - most often thought of as theatrical, but has been adapted for other media.
• Jesters - clowns associated with the middle ages.
• Vaudeville - comedy performed in theatres that declined as television ownership increased.

Definitions

• Comedian
• Comedy club

Comedy events and awards

• British Comedy Awards
• Canadian Comedy Awards
• Just for laughs festival
• Halifax Comedy Festival (aka "Ha!ifax Comedy Fest")
• Vancouver Comedy Festival
• Edinburgh Fringe Festival
• Melbourne International Comedy Festival
• HBO Comedy Arts Festival

Lists of comedy performers

• List of comedians
• List of entertainer pairs or double acts
• List of Dr Demento's radio show comedians

by nationality

• Australian comedy
• List of British Comedians
• List of Canadian comedians
• List of Finnish comedians
• List of Italian comedians
• List of Mexican comedians
• List of Puerto Rican comedians

Lists of comedy programs

• British comedy - article on British comedy and a list of British comedy programs.
• Britcom - list of British sitcoms.
• List of British TV shows remade for the American market

Other lists

• List of comedies - theatre/radio/television and from France/Russia/Canada/Australia/UK/US
• List of New York Improv comedians -comics who were regulars at the Improvisation in New York in the 1960's and 1970's

See also

• Humour
• Joke
• Laughter
• Rule of three (writing)

External links

• Comedy Archives Site of the American Comedy Archives, dedicated to preserving primary source material from the legends of the comic arts.
• Wikicomedy