LITR 4533:
TRAGEDY

Genre Presentation 2000

Laura Peterson

Comedy

Definitions:

    • Comedy is a "literary work, usually dramatic, aiming chiefly to amuse. Whereas Tragedy seeks to engage the emotions, comedy strives to entertain through ridicule of characters, customs, and institutions or through a resolution of contretemps thrown up by the plot." The 20th-cent. saw the development of comic motion pictures. http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/02973.html
    • Comedy of manners - "This genre has for its main subjects and themes the behaviour and deportment of men and women living under specific social codes. It tends to be preoccupied with the codes of the middle and upper classes and is often marked by elegance, wit and sophistication." A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 4th Ed. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1998.

 

Related genres: Elizabethan comedy, and situation comedy, and romantic comedy.

Representational genre: Movie = dialogue + narrator.

Narrative genre: Comedy, Romance.

Example: John Hughes, Sixteen Candles (1984)

Highlights of Example: tragic beginning, ending is a wedding, mistaken identity.

Additional examples of genre: William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; John Hughes, The Breakfast Club.

Research Sources: See above, plus

White Ph,D., Genre Handout; John J. Enck, Elizabeth T. Forter,

and Alvin Whitley, Ed. The Comic in theory and Practice. NY:

Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960. (Comedy Handout).

Questions:

    • If you know this film, what other elements of comedy are present? If you do not know this film, do you see any other elements of comedy?
    • Now that you know that this is a comedy, what would you expect to see if the movie kept going?