LITR 4533 Tragedy UHCL 2006 web highlight

Web Highlight: Tanya Stanley

Comedy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Introduction:

Comedy attracts a large audience with its ability to lift spirits and cause one to laugh. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an example of Comedy. Unlike Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, A Midsummer Night’s Dream does not focus on the fate of society. The situations that unfold within this Comedy do not affect the well-being of the masses. With assistance from former students, Regina Richardson, Curtisha Wallace, and Laura Peterson, one can understand the definition of comedy, be familiar with the concept, and view the aspects of Comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Comedy

Genre Presentations 2002

Regina Richardson

Comedy - a play, motion picture, or other work that is humorous in its treatment of theme and character and has a happy ending. (The American Heritage Dictionary. 2^nd ed. 1991.)

§ Begins with a problem involving recognizable social situation

§ Problem takes form of mistake or false identity

§ Ends with problem overcome or the disguise abandoned

(Comedy definition modified from Dr. White’s Genre Handout)

Curtisha Wallace

Aspects of Humor:

Scatalogical humor – Comedy based off of the body and it’s functions. The comedian uses the odd noises, fluids, body parts etc. to make a joke.

Punchlines/One liner humor – The sentence, statement, or phrase (as in a joke) that makes the point or comical observation.

Satire – use of wit, especially irony, sarcasm, and ridicule, to attack the vices and follies of humankind.

Situational – The use of putting people in odd places, times, with different people that they would not often socialize with, to create funny and interesting dialogue.

Slapstick – An aspect of comedy with the emphasis on fast physical action, farcical situations, and obvious jokes that do not depend on language.

www.cornellcollege.edu/~c-hill/catogories%20of%20comedy.htm

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 20^th-cent. saw the development of comic motion pictures.

...There is a less significant problem that the characters try to solve and the story ends happily with the characters uniting in a marriage or party. A Midsummer Night’s Dream exemplifies this because there is a plague due to the fighting of Titania and Oberon and there are young lovers trying to overcome the attempt at separating each other. The characters try to solve these problems and at the end there is a marriage and a party. Romance is another form of narrative genre in which the all begins well the characters are separated but the solution is they reunite and live happily ever after. This can be seen in the young lovers mentioned in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

...In comedy the characters are faced with serious problems but it is handled in a humorous way with a sense that all will end well. This is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when Hermia is faced with the serious option of a loveless marriage, a life as a nun, or running away from home; however the consequence of her choice to run away from home is solved with magic and the silly switching of loves that is righted in the morning. [well-put] Another aspect of the characters is the use of humor in the plays. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the characters of royalty use high humor and wit...

Conclusion: Through the use of midterm examples and genre presentations found within Dr. White’s website, one can have a better understanding of Comedy and Shakespeare’s drama, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. One way to identify Comedy is to compare and contrast it with Tragedy. Through my research, I viewed several student responses shadowing this objective.