LITERATURA EM LNGUA INGLESA: TEATRO E CINEMA

Task 18 - Essay on Comedy

Prof. Dr. Pedro Malard Monteiro
Tutora: Monica Lopes Nevoa Guimares
Aluno: Janot Lellis Moura

The same way as tragedy, comedy had its origin in ancient Greece.
According to Aristotle, the dramatic literary genre is subdivided into two other
genres: the tragic and the comic.
The comedy contains the implicit intention of making moral criticism.
In Athens, the political satire was performed by the comic poets at the theaters.
Comedy can be simply described as a dramatic performance which presents
people or society itself in amusing situations. It also contains elements of surprise,
conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations.
The political satire use ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions as
ridiculous or corrupt.
In spite that some of the characters or situations in ancient comedy are
laughable, the term comedy acquired the meaning most commonly used today: any sort
of performance that is intended to make people laugh.
The parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses
certain ironic changes to critique that form from within.
A kind of comedy which uses its humor largely from bizarre situations or
characters is called screwball comedy. There is also another type which is named as
black comedy defined by a kind of humor that uses the worst elements in human nature.
Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating
social conventions or taboos in comic 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.
 Originally, the comedy, despite imitate the inferior men, not usually depict all
their vices, but only its ridiculous and ironic side. Sometimes comedy represented
famous individuals, but characterised them in a negative way.
Whenever we talk about comedy, we can not fail to mention the Dante
Alighieris masterpiece The Divine Comedy. This play is an epic poem (which is a long
narrative poem).
The term comedy in general, can also be described as any sort of performance
that is intended to make people laugh. This includes dramatic performances by a group
of players, such as in farce, pantomime and burlesque which are individual
performances for an audience in a private or public venue. And there are the stand-up
comedy and film productions like romantic comedy, screwball comedy, and slapstick
films. On television there are sitcoms and sketch shows.
Humour sometimes depends on something very bad happening to a person.
There are also a number of films or television shows that parody serious genres.
Another form of parody that derives material from news events or historical
events is the mockumentary, which parodies documentary films.
While tragic heroes are emotionally engaged with their problems, comic
protagonists show emotional disengagement. They think, rather than feel, their way
through difficulties.
By presenting such characters as role models, comedy has implicitly valorized
the benefits of humor that are now being empirically verified, such as that it is
psychologically and physically healthy, it fosters mental flexibility, and it serves as a
social lubricant.
With a few exceptions like Aquinas, philosophers have ignored these benefits.
REFERNCIAS BIBLIOGRFICAS

Comedy. Availabe at:

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Comedy.html Accessed in:
05/16/2014

MONTEIRO, Pedro Malard. Literatura em lngua inglesa: teatro e cinema.

Universidade Federal de Uberlndia.

Philosophy of Humor. Availabe at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/ Accessed in:

05/16/2014.