Some Compiled Notes on Comedy

Audrey Stanley

Basis ­ incongruities of ordinary life ( seen with/without kindliness)

Purpose ­ to arouse laughter / to correct

Method and Style ­

1. WIT

(smile) verbal, critical, intellectual

very rapid perception of relationships between unlike things

aware of the follies of people

separates self and sits in judgement on the rest

uses words and ideas

method = surprise

a consciously entertaining person of ready speech

& lively' intelligence ­ solemn at heart

wit seeks to correct in satire, sarcasm irony

Shaw: "Mankind is on the stage ­ the wit in front of the curtain"

2. HUMOR

(chuckle) where sympathy is mixed with comedy

(laugh) arises from unusual temperament

abnormal (in humor not deformity)

odd, bizarre (clown + reason)

in sympathy with object of laughter (Shakespeare)

includes all things ­

seeing life itself as a pageant of the incongruous

we may condemn a character morally, intellectually

and yet rejoice in him or her

bound up with good nature and kindliness

laughing at our own minor misfortunes to merriment

chuckle at defects and shortcomings in all, including laughter

bond of fellowship

Meredith (1877): "On the idea of Comedy and uses of the comic spirit"

Whenever people "wax out of proportion, overblown, affected, pretentious, bombastical. hypocritical, pedantic, fantastically delicate" or are "self--deceived or hoodwinked, given to run riot in idolatries, planning short--sightedly, plotting dementedly; whenever they are at variance with their professions, and violate the unwritten but perceptible laws binding them in consideration one to another; whenever they offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or mined with conceit individually or in the bulk; the Spirit overhead will look humanely malign and cast an oblique light on them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter. That is the Comic Spirit."

John Gassner, Masters of the Drama : "Moliere never roared like Jonson /Johnson?; he simply laughed."

3. SATIRE

seeks to amend with a sense of superiority and criticism

by means of exaggeration (manners and morals)

Ludovici ­ "Laughter is a barring of the teeth"

4. SARCASM

(grimace) amend by inflicting pain (faults and foibles)

by means of inversion

Lampoon-bitter public attack

5. IRONY

where audience knows facts but characters don't

when more is meant than the surface meaning ­ but not

everyone present will understand

6. FARCE

(laugh) outrageous absurdity of situation or character

ludicrous and absurd

unreal

7. BURLESQUE

caricaturing plays, books, statesmen, actors,

and people whose style is familiar

imitate or mimic the above in such a way as to make them

laughable, ridiculous, grotesque, and generally absurd

by exaggerating peculiarities

by giving a ludicrous turn to what was meant seriously

c.f. Parody, Travesty, Skit, Take-off

8. SLAPSTICK

(Belly laugh) rough, knockabout farce

c.f. Henri Bergson, Laughter, for discussion of comedy to be found in

1. situations, 2. words, 3. character

p.s. Also add 4. visual

Walpole: "Life is a comedy to the man who thinks and a tragedy to the man who feels."

Ionesco: "There are no alternatives; if man is not tragic, he is ridiculous and painful, "comic" in fact, and by revealing his absurdity one can achieve a sort of tragedy. In fact I think that man must either be unhappy (metaphysically unhappy) or stupid." (= absurdist theatre)