1. Tragedy or Comedy?

2. Genre French: meaning “category” or “type” Best known: Tragedy and Comedy Greeks first made the clear distinction between the two genres: a mask for comedy and a mask for tragedy

3. Tragedy Serious drama involving important personages caught in calamitous circumstances Prominent in Greece in 5 th Century B.C.E. and the Renaissance

4. Traditional Tragedy Tragic Heroes and Heroines The Hero is generally a king, a queen, a general, a member of nobility. A Person of Stature Central character is caught in a set of tragic circumstances The universe seems to trap the hero or heroine in a fateful web.

5. Traditional Tragedy Tragic Irretrievability: The tragic situation becomes irretrievable: there is no turning back, no way out. No honorable avenue of escape; they must go forward to meet their tragic fate. Acceptance of Responsibility: Hero/Heroine accepts responsibility for actions—recognizes fault of character that leads to the tragic downfall.

6. Traditional Tragedy Tragic Verse: Language of traditional tragedy is verse. Verse: poetic Prose: Paragraph form The effect of tragedy: Pessimistic? Optimistic?

7. Modern Tragedy The Common Man Written in Prose Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

8. Comedy Humorous drama whose characters, actions and events are intended to provoke amusement and laughter. Aristophanes: Lysistrata ( Classical Greece) Moliere: The Imaginary Invalid (17 th Century France)

9. Characteristics of Comedy Suspension of Natural Laws: In comedy, we do not fear for a person who trips and falls…banana peels, slapsticks, Contrast between Individuals and the Social Order: the differences between basic assumptions about society and the events in the play. A ridiculous person in a normal world or vice-versa. Tartuffe by Moliere The comic premise: an idea or concept that turns the accepted notion of thing upside down.

10. Forms of Comedy Farce: all forms of exaggeration—broad physical humor, plot complications, stereotyped characters. Simply for entertainment and laughter. Bedroom Farce: marriage and sex are objects of fun

11. Forms of Comedy Burlesque: physical humor, gross exaggerations, occasional vulgarity. Historically an imitation of other forms of drama: Austin Powers and Scary Movie. Also became a term in the U.S. describing variety shows with “low” Comedy and attractive, half dressed women. Satire: uses wit, irony and exaggeration to expose or attach evil and foolishness. Chappelle’s Show, Mad TV, SNL

12. Forms of Comedy: Domestic Comedy Deals with family and family situations. Found mostly in today’s Situation Comedies (Sitcoms) Can be families, neighborhoods, co- workers

13. Forms of Comedy: Comedy of Manners Focused on pointing out the peculiarities of the upper class. Stresses the use of witty phrases and comebacks rather than the use of physical humor.

14. Extra Terms Low Comedy: Physical humor. Three Stooges. Bathroom Humor: bodily functions High Comedy: Brainy. Witty phrases and “comebacks.” Puns: A dieter doesn’t like food to go to waist. Malapropism: the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context