COMEDY

Comedy was first recognised during the old BC time period. This style of comedy was called old comedy.

During comedy BC, the humour was bawdy. This means it was seen as a rude or a dark humour that some didn’t understand. The first types of comedy also included scatological humour. This means the humour could be seen as not sophisticated as it mostly revolved around genitals and bodily functions.

A new style of comedy was founded again in BC however it wasn’t as old as the last style. This type of comedy was called new style.

A typical play that involved new style comedy would be witty, this means each character would be quick to reply and with a rude comment.

The comedy would be commonly fast paced with a classic Greek style. A comedy play would not typically be funny for the audience. The comedy is always romantic and end with characters reuniting with either each other of maybe an object or a place. The comedies do not only end with a happy ending they also have a straight forward set out plot.

New comedy style always has classic characters set out within the play. For example there is always a love struck young man, a cunning yet cowardly slave who is always scheming. This could be so he is recognised as having more power, or just so he is noticed. There is an angry father, he is mostly angry as he doesn’t want to give away his daughter; A bragging soldier and finally a kind hearted prostitute, who most would fall for within the play.

Shakespeare then created his own comedy from 1580 onwards. Shakespeare’s comedies showed that comedies don’t have to be funny. He used the ideas that marriage solved everything and young lovers could conquer all. He used bawdy peasants within his plays, these characters used slapstick to create humour with the more serious and educated characters in the plays. Shakespeare used suspension of disbelief this tells the audience that the play isn’t real.

To create humour comedy uses aspects like sexual undertones, foolish characters, stereotypes and stock characters and domestic or everyday life.

There are many common themes throughout comedies as a genre. For example class, comedies revolving around class could be upper class and lower class interacting maybe a poor son (love struck young man) from a lower class family falling for an upper class young lady (kind hearted young prostitute). Another classic example could be a theme of love, courtship, marriage, this theme relates to plays like much ‘ado about nothing’. It also involves all of the characters that would be in a classic comedy. A few other common themes are status and power, sexual politics, comedy itself and religion.

A typical plot within a comedy could be a kind hearted young man falling in love with a kind hearted young prostitute. Her father then may struggle with accepting their love and become angry about giving up his daughter to another man. There is normally then a bragging young soldier maybe he would be in love with the kind hearted young prostitute and he would be jealous of the kind hearted young man. Also there is a cunning slave who could be plotting against the family. This kind of classic comedy could link to the play Romeo and Juliet.