Comedy has developed over time from religious dramas in the medieval period to more modern forms of absurdist and black comedy. Key elements of comedy include highlighting human foolishness, mix-ups that turn life upside down, and exploring relationships and social conventions. Contemporary comedy draws on past traditions but adapts genres like farce and absurdism to expose the human condition in new ways.

1. What is Comedy?
Comedy is one of the oldest forms of drama.
Comedy highlights that human beings are in
fact ridiculous and cannot change.
Comedies, therefore, often confirm our view
of the world.

2. Some writers and observers felt that
religious dramas should contain nothing
Medieval Comedy
comic or amusing within them, and that
sacred texts should be treated as such.
Others disagreed and felt that humour
could often be used very well to instruct.
Malapropism: a
The medieval period developed dramatic comical confusion of
comedy in new ways: words
Bawdy: generally
• Dramas were usually Christian themed and applied to language
either explored episodes from the Bible or that is coarse or lewd
Pun: a play on words
scenes from the lives of saints with comic Double entendre:
sequences within them. an expression that
has two meanings.
• These were usually bawdy and contained down The first meaning
may be obvious, but
to earth humour. a second meaning
• The language they were written in had lots of may be either ironic
or rude
puns and double entendres, which the
audience would find amusing.
It seems that by the end of the medieval
period, attitudes had changed and comedy
was now a legitimate and important genre of
writing.

3. Shakespearean Comedy
• The main kind of comedies Shakespeare wrote
are often labelled romantic comedies.
• These plays are quite light-hearted, but do have
some darker and more disturbing elements to
them.
• Like the model set in previous centuries,
Shakespeare realised that the best kind of
comedy is generated by a series of mix-ups where
disorder is rife and life is turned upside down.
• All of his comedies look at the foolishness of
human beings.
• They often have interlinked plots

4. Shakespeare’s Comedies
Northrop Frye states that Shakespeare’s comedies are:
• Set in the rural world, meaning that urban and business concerns can be
forgotten.
• Time is also forgotten. There are no clocks.
• The older, restrictive generation can be dispensed with.
• There is often gender confusion.
• The mythical and real merge.
• It is a temporary holiday atmosphere.
• There is no social hierarchy.
• There is a ‘old world’ (belonging to older people or parental figures), a
‘green world’ (a forest, wood or non-urban environment – a world of
freedom but also confusion) and a ‘new world’ (a world created out of the
resolution of the play – one that has learnt from its past mistakes and
resolved previous problems).

5. Restoration Comedy Beaus - relaxed,
attractive and self-
Puritanism and the Civil War had put a stop to much confident men
comedy on stage in Britain in the middle of the 17th Rakes – men who
Century. However dramatic comedy flourished again in the live an irresponsible
final decades of the century. and immoral life
Fops – men who
• Dramas that looked at sexual relationships within polite
are dandy like and a
society
little effeminate.
• Marriage is a central theme They often pay a lot
• Key stock characters include beaus, rakes, fobs, bawds, of attention to their
scheming valets, young and older women, and country appearance and
squires. clothes
• They are mainly written in prose, though with some verse Valets – personal
sections. servants who took
• There is focus on repartee and wit. care of a
gentleman’s clothes
• The tone is bawdy, cynical and amoral. and lifestyle
• There are often double or triple plot-lines. Squires –
• Money, sexual commerce and social standing are key issues.gentlemen from the
countryside

6. Modern Comedy
Many of the plays written in the late 19th and early Absurdist comedy:
20th centuries do not appear to fully fit the dramatic drama that examines
comedy genre. life outside common
sense and the usual
After WW2 the developed a new genre of comedy: conventions
Absurdist or Black comedy. Black comedy:
One of the most popular forms of dramatic comedy comedy that looks at
in the 20th and 21st centuries is the genre of farce. dark or depressing
In a farce you might expect to see: themes in a comic
• Word play and witty banter way
• A fast paced plot that increases to a frantic speed as
the play continues
• Physical humour or slapstick
• The characters are often vain, neurotic or silly
• The plays often have a twist

7. Contemporary Dramatic Comedy
Contemporary comedies is more difficult to
define than the dramatic comedy of the past.
This is because contemporary plays incorporate
lots of elements of other styles of drama.
Contemporary comedy still uses many of the
generic elements of the past, but reworks them
in new and alternative ways. Very often, the
traditional setting for dramatic comedy are
revised, with playwrights seeking new ways of
how comedy can be used to expose and discuss
the human condition.

8. Comedy in Literature
Over time the conventions from successive
historical periods have helped define what
needs to happen on stage, and why writers
construct comedies in certain ways.
One of the things the audience should feel
when watching a comedy is that somehow the
world is absurd and that all of us do foolish
things. Conventions: the accepted rules,
structures and customs we expect to
see in a specific genre of writing