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COMEDY

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 759 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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COMEDY , the See also:

general See also:term applied to a type of See also:drama the See also:chief See also:object of which, according to See also:modern notions, is to amuse. It is contrasted on the one See also:hand with tragedy and on the other with See also:farce, See also:burlesque, &c. As compared with tragedy it is distinguished by having a happy ending (this being considered for a See also:long See also:time the essential difference), by See also:quaint situations, and by lightness of See also:dialogue and See also:character-See also:drawing. As compared with farce it abstains from crude and boisterous jesting, and is marked by some subtlety of dialogue and See also:plot. It is, however, difficult to draw a hard and fast See also:line of demarcation, there being a distinct tendency to combine the characteristics of farce with those of true comedy. This is perhaps more especially the See also:case in the so-called " musical comedy," which became popular in See also:Great See also:Britain and See also:America in the later 19th See also:century, where true comedy is frequently subservient to broad farce and spectacular effects. The word " comedy " is derived from the Gr. Kwµc La, which is a See also:compound either of KW/.WS (revel) and aoo5OS (See also:singer; ?taLlsw, gSecv, to sing), or of KWµa7 (See also:village) and aouSos: it is possible that Kiauos itself is derived from KW Ln, and originally meant a village revel. The word comes into modern usage through the See also:Lat. comoedia and Ital. commedia. It has passed through various shades of meaning. In the See also:middle ages it meant simply a See also:story with a happy ending. Thus some of See also:Chaucer's Tales are called comedies, and in this sense See also:Dante used the term in the See also:title of his poem, La Commedia (cf. his Epistola X., in which he speaks of the comic See also:style as " loquutio 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 See also:fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis ").

Subsequently the term is applied to See also:

mystery plays with a happy ending. The modern usage combines this sense with that in which See also:Renaissance scholars applied it to the See also:ancient comedies. The See also:adjective " comic " (Gr. KwµuKOS), which strictly means that which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the sense of "See also: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 See also:special See also: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 See also:shock or emotional seizure on the See also:part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, See also:factor: thus See also:Hobbes speaks of laughter as a " sudden See also:glory." Physiological explanations have been given by See also:Kant, See also:Spencer and See also:Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much See also:attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, babies being watched from See also:infancy and the date of their first smile being carefully recorded. For an admirable See also:analysis and See also:account of the theories see See also:James See also:Sully, On Laughter (1902), who deals generally with the development of the " See also:play See also:instinct " and its emotional expression. See DRAMA; also See also:HUMOUR; See also:CARICATURE; PLAY, &C.

End of Article: COMEDY

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COMENIUS (or KOMENSKY), JOHANN AMOS (1592-1671)

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