Classical Notes on Comedy

From Aristotle's Poetics

• Aristotles dates:  c. 347-322 B.C.E
• People are imitative.  Through imitation, people learn lessons.  Through imitation, people derive pleasure, even if the object imitated is painful in reality.  The reason for this is that learning gives pleasure.  Therefore, in contemplating an imitation, one gest pleasure because one learns.
• Epic, tragedy, comedy, and dithyrambic poetry are all forms of imitation.  The imitate people in action.
• Tragedy and comedy are dramatic forms.  Tragedy depicts people better as than they are; comedy depicts people as worse than they are.
• Origins of the word "comedy"--
• Greek words for revel, villages/villagers, and the act of wandering from village to village (as did early actors)
• Comedy imitates low character types and tends to use less elevated language.  It avoids the villainous, and aims instead at the ludicrous, which reflects a defect or ugliness that is not painful or destructive.  It tends to focus on probable characters and events, rather than real characters and events.
• The poet's function is to relate, not what has happened, but what can happen--what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.  It is okay for the poet to alter events to the probable or possible.

From Tractate

• Tractate's dates: c. 4th-2nd B.C.E.
• Describes comedy's relationship to other forms of poetry
• Defines comedy as a work that is:
• An imitation of an action that is ludicrous and imperfect;
• Of sufficient length;
• Written in embellished language;
• Presented through acting; and
• Effects a purgation of emotions through pleasure and laughter.
• Laughter arises from
• Diction
• Homonyms
• Synonyms
• Garrulity
• Paronyms made by
• Addition
• Clipping
• Diminutives
• Perversion
1. By voice
2. By other means
• Grammar and syntax
• Things
  • From assimilation employed
    • Toward the worse
    • Toward the better
  • From deception
  • From the impossible
  • From the possible and inconsequent
  • From the unexpected
  • From the debasing of personages
  • From the use of clownish dancing
  • When one with power neglects it and takes what is worthless
  • When the story is disjointed or without sequence

• Plot--structure binding together ludicrous incidents
• Characters
• Buffoons
• Ironical
• Imposters
• Dianoia
• Opinion
• Proofs
• Oaths
• Compacts
• Testimonies
• Tortures (tests and ordeals)
• Laws
• Diction--common, popular language of the individual character
• Melody
• Spectacle

From Cicero's On the Character of the Orator (55 B.C.E.)

• Source of laughter is baseness
• Neither great vice nor great virtue are laughable
• All matter for ridicule lies in defects observable in characters of men not in universal esteem, nor in calamitous circumstances and who do not appear deserving to be dragged to punishment for their crimes.  Also fair game (according to Cicero) are deformity and bodily defects.
• An orator should therefore be careful to avoid that which produces violent aversion and extreme compassion
• Don't be tasteless
• Don't let jokes become buffoonery or mimicry
• The best jokes occur when laughter is raised by thought and language together
• The orator needs the appropriate subject material for jokes
• The orator needs the proper demeanor for jokes