Question- What is Comedy and describe the types of Comedy?

Answer -

Comedy is a play of right and amusing character with a happy ending. It adopts a humerous or witty style and depicts laughable characters and incidents. It aims at evoking our laughter. In comedy though fortune may be unkind for a while, all comes right in the end. Comedy deals with the people of much less importance. The atmosphere of the comedy is mirthful and light comedy moves us to laughter whether it is thoughtful laughter or analloyed mirth. In literary art that form of drama which presents. mimetically the lighter, more laughable aspects of human action and character. Because of its consent and objective the comedy is ordinarily satirical. It holds up to ridicule either the universal or the contemporary follies and weakness of the human animal; thus it aims often to correct society as well as to entertain it.

Emotions generate a driving power that stimulates action, comedy on the other hand, is often comparatively static in quality placing little reliance upon the complications of plot. On the lowest physical level its plots are farcical, fitted with horse play, misunderstandings, mistaken identify, often figure prominently in them, Romantic complications are sometime introduced to give body to the narrative at their most sophisticated they are concerned with clashes of personality rather than with obvious external action. In any case the plot of a comedy is merely a thread on which to hang a number of diverting incidents that illustrate the varieties of human weakness observed with dry detachment, with all its rivatry and gaiety, a good comedy penetrates deeply into the roots of human weakness observed with dry detachment, with all its rivalry and gaiety, a good comedy penetrates deeply into the roots of human nature, makes the observer intensely aware of man's possibilities as well as of his limitations.

Types of Comedy:

The main trends of English comedy can broadly be classified into five groups, namely Romantic Comedy', 'Comedy of Manners', 'Comedy of Humours', 'Sentimental Comedy' and Tragi-comedy'.

Romantic Comedy: The term 'Romantic Comedy' is a somewhat vague appellation, which denotes a form of drama in which love is the main theme and love leads to a happy ending. The term 'Romantic Comedy' is generally applied to plays developed by Shakespeare and some of his Elizabathen contemporaries. These plays are generally concerned with love affairs that involve a beautiful and idealized heroine; the course of this love does not run smooth, but ultimately overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union.

Comedy of Humours: The comedy of humours is conceived and popularized by Ben Jonson. The word 'humours' refers to bodily fluids to which medieval medicine attributed to the various types of human temperament according to the predominance of each within the body. Thus a preponderance of blood would make a person 'Sanguine', while excess of phlegm would make him or her 'plegmatic', too much choler (yellow bile) would produce a melancholy one. In Jonson's 'Comedy of Humours' each of the major characters instead of being a well balanced individual, has preponderant humour that gives him a characteristic distortion or eccentricity of disposition.

Comedy of Manners: The phrase 'Comedy of Manners' is particularly applied in English to the plays of the Restoration dramatists, and especially to Congreve and Wycherley. This form deals with the relations and intrigues of gentlemen and ladies living in a sophisticated society. It relies upon comic effect in great part on the wit and sparkles of the dialogues, and to a certain degree, on the ridiculous violations of social conventions and decorum by stupid characters such as would be wives, jealous husbands and foppish dandies. The main thrust in the 'Comedy of Manners' is to make fun not so much of individual human being as of social groups and their fashionable manner. It is generally more or less satirical, though in a good natured way. It is however a highly artificial drama, full of verbal wit and sometimes inclined to be cynical and hard.

Sentimental Comedy: This form achieved some popularity with respectable middle class audiences of the 18th century. It showed virtue rewarded by domestic bliss; its plots usually involved unbelievable good middle class couple and emphasized pathos rather than humour. This form is pioneered by Richard Steele in The Funeral' and more fully in The Concious Lovers' and by Huge Kelley in False Delicacy'.

Tragi-comedy: There are many plays which do not totally subscribe to spirit of comedy, nor do they embody the tragic emotions. In parts, they may be cheerful but they point to some darker aspects of life as well. But generally these plays are also classified as comedies. Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure' and Eliot's The Cocktail Party', for example, might both be called comedies but they have very little in common with the main stream of the English Comedies. To these plays, the Tragi-comedy' have been applied. Shakespeare's later plays like The Winter's Tale' and 'Cymbeline' are Tragi- comedies' with the pattern of sudden release from delay danger involved in the plots. Prominent in the Theatre of the Absurd', Tragi-comedy' is best represented in Beckett's 'Happy Days' and 'Joe Orton's The Loot'.

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