Comedy Totally Explained

Everything about Comedy totally explained

"Comedy" has a popular meaning (any discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy). This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.
   The theatrical genre can be simply described as a dramatic performance which pits two societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye famously depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old" (The Anatomy of Criticism, 1957), but this dichotomy is seldom described as an entirely satisfactory explanation.
   A later view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes; in this sense, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse to ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter (Marteinson, 2006).
   Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, but there are many recognized genres of comedy. Satire and political satire use ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor. Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes to critique that form from within (though not necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters. Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so called dark or evil elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comedic ways.
   A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

Etymology

The word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κωμῳδία, which is a compound either of κῶμος (revel) or κώμη (village) and ᾠδή (singing): it's possible that κῶμος itself is derived from κώμη, and originally meant a village revel. The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός), which strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking". The word came into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time, passed through various shades of meaning.
Greeks and Romans confined the word "comedy" to descriptions of stage-plays with happy endings. In the middle ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Divina Commedia. As time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter.
The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it has been carefully investigated by psychologists and agreed upon the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

Forms of comedy

Performing arts

History

Ancient Greek comedy, as practiced by Aristophanes and Menander

Ancient Roman comedy, as practiced by Plautus and Terence

Burlesque, from Music hall and Vaudeville to Performance art

Citizen comedy, as practiced by Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton and Ben Jonson

Clowns such as Richard Tarlton, William Kempe, Yukko the Clown and Robert Armin

Comedy of humours, as practiced by Ben Jonson and George Chapman

Comedy of intrigue, as practiced by Niccolò Machiavelli and Lope de Vega

Comedy of manners, as practiced by Molière, William Wycherley and William Congreve

Comedy of menace, as practiced by David Campton and Harold Pinter

comédie larmoyante or 'tearful comedy', as practiced by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée and Louis-Sébastien Mercier

Commedia dell'arte, as practiced in the twentieth-century by Dario Fo, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Jacques Copeau

Farce, from Georges Feydeau to Joe Orton and Alan Ayckbourn

Jester

Laughing comedy, as practiced by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Restoration comedy, as practiced by George Etherege, Aphra Behn and John Vanbrugh

Sentimental comedy, as practiced by Colley Cibber and Richard Steele

Shakespearean comedy, as practiced by William Shakespeare

Dadaist and Surrealist performance, usually in cabaret form

Theatre of the Absurd, used by some critics to describe Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Jean Genet and Eugène Ionesco

Sketch comedy Kaitlyn mcneill

Plays (theater)

Musical comedy plays

Musical comedy

Opera

Comic opera Goonies

Improvisational comedy

Clowns

Bouffon comedy

Clowns

Stand-up comedy

Comedian

Musical comedy

Comedy albums

Comedy club

Stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy events and awards

British Comedy Awards

Canadian Comedy Awards

Cat Laughs Comedy Festival

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Halifax Comedy Festival

HBO Comedy Arts Festival

Just for laughs festival

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

New Zealand International Comedy Festival

New York Underground Comedy Festival

Vancouver Comedy Festival

Lists of stand-up comedy performers

List of comedians

By nationality

List of Australian comedians

List of British comedians

List of Canadian comedians

List of Finnish comedians

List of German language comedians

List of Italian comedians

List of Mexican comedians

List of Puerto Rican comedians

List of Indian comedians

List of Colombian Comedians

Jokes

One-liner joke

Shaggy-dog story

Paddy Irishman joke

Literature

Comic novel

Film

Comedy film

Television and radio

Television comedy

Situation comedy

Dramedy

Radio comedy

Lists of comedy television programs

British sitcom

British comedy

Comedy Central - A television channel devoted strictly to comedy.

German television comedy

List of British TV shows remade for the American market

Paramount Comedy (Spain).

Paramount Comedy 1 and 2. my name is habush

TBS (TV network)

The Comedy Channel (Australia)

The Comedy Channel (UK)

The Comedy Channel (USA) not to be confused with HA! - channels that have merged into Comedy Central.

The Comedy Network, a Canadian TV channel.

Lists

List of comedies

List of New York Improv comediansFurther Information

Get more info on 'Comedy'.

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