The document defines genres as categories or types of dramatic works. It discusses the traditional genres of tragedy and comedy, noting that tragedies featured noble protagonists facing a tragic fate, while comedies aimed to entertain through situations that suspend natural laws and expose social foibles. The document also examines subgenres like melodrama, domestic drama, and tragicomedy, providing examples of their characteristics and conventions.

1. Chapter 4

2.  Genre
 A French word meaning “category” or “type”
 Oldest and best-know genres are:
▪ Tragedy
▪ Comedy
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3.  Traditional Tragedy
 Tragic Heroes and Heroines
▪ A person of stature—king, queen, general
▪ Stand as symbols of an entire culture or society
▪ Trapped in a fateful web of tragic circumstances
 Tragic Fate
 Acceptance of Responsibility
 Tragic Verse
 The Effects of Tragedy
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4.  Modern Tragedy
 No queens or kings as central figures
 Written in prose rather than poetry
 Probe the same depths and ask the same
questions
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5.  Characteristics of Comedy
 Suspension of Natural Laws
 Contrast Between Individuals and the Social
Order
 The Comic Premise
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6.  Forms of Comedy
 Farce
▪ Thrives on exaggeration
▪ Has no intellectual pretensions
▪ Aims are entertainment and laughter
▪ Has excessive plot complications
▪ Humor results from ridiculous situations as well as
pratfalls and horseplay
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7.  Forms of Comedy continued
 Burlesque
▪ Relies on knockabout physical humor, gross
exaggeration, and occasional vulgarity
▪ Historically, it was a ludicrous imitation of other
forms of drama
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9.  Forms of Comedy continued
 Satire
▪ Uses wit, especially sophisticated language; irony;
and exaggeration to expose or attack evil and
foolishness
 Domestic Comedy
▪ Usually deals with family situations
▪ Found in TV situation comedies
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10.  Forms of Comedy continued
 Comedy of Manners
▪ Concerned with pointing up the foibles and
peculiarities of the upper class
▪ Uses verbal wit
 Comedy of Ideas
▪ Uses comic techniques to debate intellectual
propositions such as the nature of war, cowardice,
and romance
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11.  Heroic Drama
 Serious drama that has heroic or noble
characters and certain other traits of classic
tragedy
 Has a happy ending
 Assumes a basically optimistic worldview
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12.  Melodrama
 Means “song drama” or “music drama”
 Originally comes from the Greek
 Made popular by the French
 “Music” refers to the background music that
accompanied these plays
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13.  Melodrama continued
 Relies on surface effects that create
suspense, fear, nostalgia, etc.
 Heroes and heroines are clearly delineated
from villains
 Has easily recognizable stock characters
 Virtue is always victorious
 Has a suspenseful plot
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14.  Domestic Drama
 Deals with people from everyday life instead
of kings, queens, and nobility
 Common themes are:
▪ Problems of society
▪ Struggles within a family
▪ Dashed hopes
▪ Renewed determination
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15.  Tragicomedy
▪ Point of view is mixed
▪ Prevailing attitude is a synthesis, or fusion, of the
serious and the comic
 Shakespearean Tragicomedy
 Modern Tragicomedy
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