Types of Comedy

Types of Comedy There are five types of comedy in literature: 1.Romantic Comedy ********************** This type of drama involves the theme of love leading to happy conclusion. We find romantic comedy in Shakespearean plays and some Elizabethan contemporaries.These plays are concerned with idealized love affairs. It is a fact that the true love never runs smooth; however, love overcomes the difficulties and ends in a happy union. Example: ••••••••••• William Shakespeare’s play,A Midsummer Night’s Dream,is a good example of a romantic comedy, presenting young lovers falling comically in and out of love for a brief period. Their real world problems get resolved magically, enemies reconcile and true lovers unite in the end.

 2.Comedy of Humors *********************** Ben Johnson is the first dramatist, who conceived and popularized this dramatic genre during late sixteenth century. The term humor derives from Latin word ‘humor’ that means liquid. It comes from a theory that human body has four liquids or humors, which include phelgm, blood, yellow bile and black bile. It explains that when human beings have balance of these humors in their bodies, they remain healthy. Example: ••••••••••• In his play,Every Man in His Humour, Ben Johnson brings comedy of humors. An overpowering suspicion and obsessed with his wife that she might be unfaithful to him, controls Kitely. Then, a country gull determines every decision of George Downright in order to understand the manners of gallant city. Kno’well worried for moral development of his son, tries to spy on him. 

 3.Comedy of Manners ************************ This form of dramatic genre deals with intrigues and relations of ladies and gentlemen, living in a sophisticated society. This form relies upon high comedy, derived from sparkle and wit of dialogues, violations of social traditions, and good manners by nonsense characters like jealous husbands, wives and foppish dandies. We find its use in Restoration dramatists, particularly in the works of Wycherley and Congreve. Example: The most important playwrights in the Restoration period are William Congreve and William Wycherley; but some of Shakespeare’s plays (e.g.Love’s Labour’s Lost, or much Ado About Nothing) can also be considered examples of this genre, as are the plays of Molière, Sheridan, and Oscar Wilde. 4.Sentimental Comedy ************************* Sentimental drama contains both comedy and sentimental tragedy. It appears in literary circle due to reaction of middle class against obscenity and indecency of Restoration Comedy of Manners. This form gained popularity among the middle class audiences in eighteenth century. This drama incorporates scenes with extreme emotions evoking excessive pity. Example: •••••••••••• Sir Richard Steele’s play,The Conscious Lovers,is a best-known and popular sentimental comedy, which is like a melodrama. It characterizes extreme exaggeration, dealing with trials of its penniless leading role Indiana. The play ends happily with the discovery of Indiana as heiress. 

 5.Tragicomedy **************** This dramatic genre contains both tragic and comedic elements. It blends both elements to lighten an overall mood of the play. Often,tragicomedy is a serious play ends happily. Example: ••••••••••• Shakespeare’s play,All’s Well that Ends Well, perfectly sums up tragic and comic elements. This tragicomedy play shows antics of low born but devoted Helena, who attempts to win the love of her lover, Bertram. She finally succeeds into marrying him though she decides not to accept him until wears family ring of her husband and bears him a child. She employs a great deal of trickery by disguising herself as Bertram’s another he is after and fakes her death. Bertram discovers her treachery at the end but realizes Helena did all that for him and expresses his love for her.