{"id":4163,"date":"2024-09-16T15:29:47","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T22:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/?page_id=4163"},"modified":"2025-10-10T13:31:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:31:13","slug":"introduction-to-comedy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/introduction-to-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Commentaries on Shakespeare’s Genres: Comedy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Nullum est iam dictum, quod non dictum fit prius.<\/em>
Nothing is said now, which hasn\u2019t been said before.
                            \u2014Terence, Prologue to Eunuchus<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare\u2019s Greek and Roman Comic Predecessors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samuel Johnson writes in his \u201cPreface to Shakespeare\u201d<\/em> that Shakespeare crafted his plays as mixed-genre productions, created from life\u2019s \u201cchaos of mingled purposes and casualties.\u201d With regard to any purer notions of genre, he tells us that this great playwright was most comfortable when writing comedies because they suited his generous imagination and character best. Johnson says of Shakespeare that \u201cHis tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the value of the above critical assessment, Shakespeare, in writing at least some of his comic plays, seems to have worked from ancient models, as when he transformed Plautus\u2019s mistaken-identity play Menaechmi <\/em>into The Comedy of Errors. <\/em>For that reason, we should discuss ancient comedy briefly for the insight its themes and structure can provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s customary to distinguish between Greek Old Comedy like that of Aristophanes (circa <\/em>456-386 BCE) and the Greek New Comedy of Menander (circa<\/em> 342-291 BCE) and other playwrights, such as his later Roman followers Plautus (circa <\/em>254-184 BCE) and Terence (circa<\/em> 195-159 BCE). [2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Greek Old Comedy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve ever read or seen a comedy by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes (The Clouds, Lysistrata, The Birds, <\/em>etc.), you know that it\u2019s rough stuff\u2014mainly topical or time-bound satire about famous politicians and philosophers. The Clouds, <\/em>for example, is about Socrates as proprietor of the Thinkery, where all sorts of wildly improbable notions are propagated for the benefit of fools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outrageous, bawdy humor is the essence of such plays, and they can pack a political wallop as well: in Lysistrata,<\/em> Greek women withhold sexual favors from men until they agree to put an end to the ruinous Peloponnesian War. On the whole, in Old Comedy the characters are ridiculous, vain, and shallow: a main item of interest is the perennial quality of human folly, selfishness, and vice. This topic is important in New Comedy as well, but Old Comedy\u2019s harsh treatment of human follies stands out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greek and Roman New Comedy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Greek comic playwright Menander and his later Roman followers Plautus (circa<\/em> 254-184 BCE) and Terence (circa<\/em> 190-158 BCE) offer a different brand of comic play. The emphasis is on domestic matters rather than broad political issues. Love, or at least sexual desire treated sympathetically, is central to the action, and there\u2019s also some concern for the relationship between the older generation and the younger, particularly between a father and his son, as well as interest in relations between people of different status, such as masters and their clever slaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, there\u2019s plenty of fun at the expense of fools, dupes, lovers too old for the mate they desire, and so forth. As is often noted, [3]<\/a> stock characters are the order of the day in New Comedy: we don\u2019t look to its characters for deep interiority or subjectivity any more than we would have expected those qualities in Aristophanes\u2019 Old Comedy. New Comedy is also morally expansive: the characters who win out tend to be the ones the playwright supposes the audience will like. <\/em>In comedy, sympathy trumps propriety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popularity of comic mix-ups and disguises suggests that identities are more interchangeable than anyone had thought. Depending on the circumstances, of course, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. While blessing the individual\u2019s desire for happiness in the face of the many obstacles life throws in the way of that state, New Comedy makes no extraordinary claims for the individual\u2019s uniqueness or for the special personal dignity that tragic plays usually involve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Comedy\u2019s conception of personhood, of \u201cthe self,\u201d as we would say, requires no grand forays into the depths of human nature. On comedy\u2019s terms, that would almost certainly be a waste of intellectual and emotional energy. A Hamlet-like interiority (an incredibly complex, even tortured, inner self) would certainly not help a comic character achieve sustainable happiness. In New Comedy particularly, the world (or fate, or whatever term seems appropriate) is well-disposed towards certain characters, and this fundamental disposition on the world\u2019s part largely paves the way to individual, marital, and collective happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Structure of Terentian Drama<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Roman poet and critic Horace, in his treatise Ars Poetica<\/em> (circa 15 BCE), writes, \u201cLet a play which would be inquired after \u2026 be neither shorter nor longer than the fifth act.\u201d [4]<\/a> But it\u2019s commonly said that the structure of the New Comedy comes to us mainly from Aelius Donatus, [5]<\/a>  who anchored his principles to the work of Terence. [6]<\/a> Donatus, a mid-fourth-century CE grammarian and rhetoric teacher, wrote commentaries on Terence\u2019s plays titled Commentum Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A. First comes the prologue, <\/em>which may offer background and context for better understanding the story that will be staged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B. Next comes the protasis<\/em>, in which the basic characters and situation are established. This stage corresponds roughly to the first act of a modern five-act play. There will also be some destabilizing incident that generates conflict\u2014any form of literature requires conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C. Third comes the epitasis<\/em> in which events and characters are interwoven and become more complicated. This stage corresponds roughly to the second and third acts of a five-act play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D. Fourth comes the catastasis<\/em>, in which the plot is about to reach its high point, or in fact reaches that high point, and the action seems to be fully wound up. This term can be used to mean \u201cclimax.\u201d This stage or point may occur around the end of the third act or in the fourth, again if we are thinking about five-act plays. (Incidentally, Julius Caesar Scaliger is responsible for the post-classical term \u201ccatastasis.\u201d [7]<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E. Last comes the final action, the catastrophe<\/em>, which in comedy is a happy ending: errors and deceptions are discovered, misunderstandings and murky motives are clarified, situations and identities firm up, and so forth. Society is in good order and people are free to be happy again. This stage will generally occur in the fifth act of a five-act play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Features and Concerns of Shakespearean Comedy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love and Marriage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespearean comedy\u2019s central subject is, of course, love. The aim of this comedy is also profoundly social, and strongly oriented toward marriage<\/em> as the key social institution. From a traditionalist standpoint, marriage is the guarantor of a society, enabling it to thrive materially and transmit forward its customs and values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are many kinds of love, and many qualities of marriage. What kind of love, then, are we dealing with? What kind of relationships might develop, and how? What obstacles are quickly set in the way, by whom and in the name of what value or purpose? By what means are they overcome? These are some of the basic questions we may want to ask when studying a comic play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there must <\/em>be obstacles if there is to be any drama at all: desire cannot simply be granted its object. It is subject to deferral and delay before (in most cases, at least) it achieves satisfaction. So the love quest itself\u2014its frustrations, failures, overcomings, and triumphs\u2014will be another central matter to follow. [8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now consider \u201clove\u201d in its purely conventional, societal-value dimension. In this sense, married love is a societal good because couples beget children who perpetuate a society\u2019s values and help to maintain that society\u2019s material prosperity. Within this conventional context, love is basically a set of property relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, many of Shakespeare\u2019s couples are in tension with the purely conventional, property-based dimension of love. The societal aim may be conventional marriage, but\u2014based on the couple\u2019s reasons for entering into such a marriage\u2014a number of things can happen once this formal, institutional event takes place. To give shape to the range of possibilities, we can set forth the following three marriage types, the first of which is rare, a second that constitutes the majority of marriages, and a third that establishes a very inclusive social standard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The rarest and most fulfilling kind of marriage is the one that begins as (or develops into) an ideal romantic union. <\/em>This is a marriage in which both partners genuinely love and are attracted to each other. They\u2019re \u201csoulmates,\u201d as we would say today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The most widespread model is the conventional marriage<\/em>. At minimum, this kind of union allows a given couple to live together as stable, respectable members of their society. It is available even to people of humble social status, but in Shakespeare it often involves middle-to-upper-class and even noble\/royal marriages entered into for dynastic and financial reasons. This broadly defined sort of marriage may or may not involve, or strive towards, ideal romantic love. In many cases, the couple will be cordial though not passionate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. The third kind of union is a special case of the conventional marriage, and it generally brings together couples in less than ideal circumstances. Such marriages are sometimes contracted on compulsion or owing to desperation, and the couple in question may may not even like <\/em>each other, let alone feel genuine love. In some cases, little more than a cover for naked sexual passion (i.e., lust) may be sought. As St. Paul says in 1<\/em> Corinthians <\/em>7:9, \u201cit is better to marry than to burn\u201d (1599 Geneva Bible, Biblegateway.com). [9]<\/a>  Marriage, that is, legitimizes sexual relations, while fornication is merely sin.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples of the above marriage types would be useful, so let\u2019s consider the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First type\u2014ideal romantic marriages<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for type 1, ideal romantic couplings, Rosalind and Orlando in As You Like It <\/em>seem like excellent candidates, especially if we allow them a little more time after their respective plays\u2019 conclusions\u2014a play isn\u2019t a Jane Austen novel, after all, so a playwright must be content to sketch or outline an ideal union, not a fully developed married life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, too, Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing, <\/em>with their razor-sharp, exquisitely timed barbs and personal history with each other, seem like a perfectly matched pair. Absolute domestic harmony isn\u2019t everything. They also make a fine contrast with Claudio and Hero, the inexperienced, rather conventional couple who serve as their foils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second Type\u2014Conventional marriages and matches of uncertain quality<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the second, perfectly respectable middling sort of union, we might name the two \u201cMerry Wives of Windsor\u201d in the play by that name. Mistress Page and Mistress Ford are both respectable, upper-middle-class (and slightly sassy) women married to respectable men of the same class. No \u201cRomeos and Juliets\u201d here, just two pairs of happy, financially secure citizens living their best lives together, and as a bonus, the wives get to enjoy duping their rascally suitor Sir John Falstaff. Excessive jealousy afflicts Master Ford, but once that\u2019s dealt with, all\u2019s well in Windsor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pages\u2019 daughter, Ann, rebels against her parents\u2019 wishes to marry the man she loves, Fenton, and in the end, we\u2019re left to guess whether she will follow in her mother\u2019s footsteps in her marriage, or achieve one of those rarest of things, a perfectly romantic, ideal union. Somehow, given the parents\u2019 mild reaction and the play\u2019s general ambience, something in between seems most likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, this conventional conception of marriage satisfies society\u2019s needs just fine, and the individual couples seem to be pretty happy with their arrangement, too. Much of comedy deals with the process of achieving adequation or balance between broad social imperatives and individuals\u2019 desires, and pleasantly conventional marriages work well in this regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some conventional Shakespearean marriages straddle the happiness divide, and the playwright may be challenging us to decide for ourselves what sort of union we see developing. One such is the marriage of Petruccio and Katarina (aka \u201cKate\u201d) in The Taming of the Shrew. <\/em>Will these two live together as a conventionally happy couple, with Kate, the \u201cshrew,\u201d having been duly tamed and Petruccio playing the now-mild husband, or will they achieve a more truly romantic partnership? Will they continue their struggle for dominance and end up unhappy\u2014or even happy?<\/em> The answer probably depends on how we interpret Kate\u2019s seemingly obedient speech towards the play\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another example of a conventional marriage whose parameters are left somewhat open is the union between Portia and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. <\/em>Do the two characters in question have the necessary depth to qualify as anything more than rather shallow semi-aristocrats? The question arises thanks to the sometimes glib, sometimes excessive religious and friendship-based rhetoric that passes for currency in the Christian characters\u2019 circle. Will Portia and Bassanio develop into an ideal couple? It seems a reasonable thing to conjecture, but who can say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love\u2019s Labor\u2019s Lost,<\/em> too, with its several potentially \u201cideal\u201d matchups, offers a difficult romantic landscape, one strewn with formal, conventional obstacles that the play\u2019s conclusion doesn\u2019t resolve. Sure, the play is about \u201clove,\u201d but it is so in a manner that leads us towards a meditation on the ways in which courtship can lead its practitioners into a thicket of human expectations and emotions. There is a technical side (including mastery of rhetoric and pageantry, especially for lovers of their high status) to courtship that the King of Navarre, Berowne & Co. find requires a great deal of effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third Type\u2014Marriages based on desperation, compulsion, or lust<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In As You Like It, <\/em>Touchstone the witty courtier and Audrey the simple shepherdess would never be mistaken for an ideal match. Their union is mainly about legitimizing Touchstone\u2019s sexual needs, and probably Audrey\u2019s as well. But that\u2019s enough\u2014conventional marriage will cover them both, though few people would want to bet on Touchstone remaining faithful to Audrey for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An even less happy union is the one forced upon the rascally wit Lucio in Measure for Measure. <\/em>The Duke forces him to marry Kate Keepdown, apparently a prostitute he got pregnant a while back. Lucio complains vociferously, but the Duke isn\u2019t interested in his whining. This marriage is more of a punishment for Lucio than anything else, but it should still fulfill society\u2019s basic imperative of moral respectability (or at least the appearance of such), and provide for the child\u2019s upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in Measure for Measure, <\/em>the severe hypocrite Angelo must marry Mariana, a former lover whom he jilted over money. The Duke demands that he marry this woman, who still\u2014inexplicably\u2014actually loves him. As the French say, \u201cThe heart has reasons that reason doesn\u2019t know.\u201d Shakespeare is aware that quite often, one partner in a marriage simply loves the other more. Love is not always, and perhaps is only rarely ever, divided evenly between two people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who remain beyond or outside the marriage circle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another \u201cquestion mark\u201d consists of those who remain outsiders to the institution of marriage in Shakespeare. Some remain beyond the circle of marriage due to their peculiar temperament. Examples of this would be the melancholy Monseiur Jacques in As You Like It <\/em>and Feste the wry Clown in Twelfth Night.<\/em> Both of these characters are quintessential observers,<\/em> not steady participants in the world\u2019s goings-on. It would not suit them to marry. It\u2019s just as well. As Dr. Johnson says, Shakespeare is capable of dealing with many aspects of life, not just love. With due apologies to the Beatles, love isn\u2019t <\/em>always all you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also a limited number of characters who seem same-sex oriented, in today\u2019s terms: most particularly, there\u2019s Antonio in Twelfth Night <\/em>and Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. <\/em>The first\u2019s passion-tinged amicitia <\/em>for Viola\u2019s brother Sebastian is bound to remain unrequited, and the same is true of Antonio\u2019s obvious love for Bassanio, who marries the lovely heiress Portia after nearly costing his older male friend his life over that huge loan from Shylock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflections on conventionality and the range of acceptable marriages in Shakespearean comedy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could go on with these explorations, but there\u2019s no need. We can easily infer Shakespeare\u2019s reason for exploring in his comedies the phenomenon of conventionality<\/em> in life, both its strengths and its limitations. Conventionality protects people and allows them to flourish, but it may also limit them, preventing their growth into fully developed human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To a certain extent, conventionality functions as a means whereby the individual can adjust his or her desires to suit the community, and\u2014at least to some small extent\u2014the obverse can also happen, so that a workable equilibrium is achieved. [10]<\/a> Conventionality and normativity can be stultifying, but they are also productive sites of contestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, Shakespeare seems to view the power of convention as a kind of social magic akin to art and artifice. [11]<\/a> We won\u2019t find this thoughtful playwright simply dismissing conventions or norms in a fit of impatience. He acknowledges the pull of natural impulses, but does not suggest that they must always be indulged, any more than they can be persistently and totally denied. Artifice (which includes conventions like marriage) is always in tension with raw human nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The institution of marriage, as we said, can accommodate all sorts of arrangements, some of which conduce to happiness more than others, some less so. In our time, we are impatient with anything short of a marriage that seeks the ideal of true love\u2014marriages that seem to be all about money, or appearances, or dynastic or familial concerns, disappoint or even unsettle us. They all seem to entail an unacceptable degree of \u201csettling\u201d rather than an attempt to live a full life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this is meant to depress readers and make them think that there\u2019s nothing but settling in Shakespeare\u2019s comic plays. Far from it! Shakespeare\u2019s warrant for representing the more ideal kind of love seems to have been at least an indirect knowledge of ancient Greek romance novels such as Achilles Tatius\u2019s Leucippe and Clitophon, <\/em>Chariton\u2019s Chaereas and Callirho\u00eb, <\/em>and Longus\u2019s Daphnis and Chloe.<\/em> [12]<\/a> These tales were fueled by the adventures of passionate lovers, and we can find their influence filtered through many texts that Shakespeare would have known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Philip Sidney\u2019s prose romance The Countess of Pembroke\u2019s Arcadia <\/em>is one text that underscores such influences, and so are medieval collections of novelle <\/em>such as Boccaccio\u2019s Decameron <\/em>and Matteo Bandello\u2019s collection as translated by Fran\u00e7ois de Belleforest and thence Englished by William Paynter as The Palace of Pleasure.<\/em> Shakespeare used this kind of material for his comedies and tragedies alike. [13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, to sum up this first part of the guide on comedy, modern readers may find themselves surprised at just how accommodating Shakespeare can be when it comes to the workable varieties of marriage. At times, it seems that almost any kind will serve society\u2019s needs. A marriage may range on a sliding scale, frankly, from near-heaven on earth to a species of restitution, and thence to what Lucio in Measure for Measure <\/em>calls \u201changing, pressing, and whipping.\u201d Yet, it may still suit society\u2019s ends. [14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this is something to keep in mind: what kind of marriages are the various characters getting themselves into, and whose needs do those marriages serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Features and Concerns of Shakespearean Comedy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caritas et Cupiditas: <\/em>Charity vs. Selfishness (or Greed)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To our observations about \u201clove and marriage,\u201d we should add an understanding of the Christian context that informs Shakespeare\u2019s plays. This is not to say that Shakespeare wears his religious beliefs (be they Protestant or quietly Catholic) [15]<\/a> on his ruffled shirt-sleeve or aims to promote them. It is only to say that Christian theology and customs inform <\/em>his plays and figure directly or indirectly to a significant extent. Shakespeare was writing for a Christian audience, and he was not a fiery atheist like his ill-fated rival Christopher Marlowe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a main example of this Christian bent, let\u2019s consider the concept of charity. We mentioned likeability<\/em> with respect to ancient comedy: sympathetic characters win, and vain, ungenerous characters lose. We might reinterpret this notion by applying the Christian opposition between generosity and selfishness or, to use more productive Augustinian terminology, between charity (caritas<\/em>) and cupidity (cupiditas<\/em>). [16]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caritas <\/em>has to do with a generous outflowing of love for God and, consequently, for one\u2019s fellow human beings\u2014it is something that helps to unite not only individuals into couples but indeed entire communities into a functioning civil society. It encourages forgiveness of wrongs and a bearing of optimism and faith in the teeth of adversity. As Portia, disguised as a learned legal advocate, says at Shylock\u2019s trial in The Merchant of Venice, <\/em>\u201cThe quality of mercy is not strained.\u201d [17]<\/a> In other words, a person shouldn\u2019t need to be forced <\/em>or constrained<\/em> (by law, for example) to show compassion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cupiditas, <\/em>by contrast, has to do with individual selfishness\u2014a cupidinous or greedy person seeks and accumulates riches and status more to lord them over others than really to enjoy<\/em> what has been gained. Perhaps Jesus\u2019s remark in Matthew <\/em>16:25 says it best: \u201cFor whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it\u201d (1599 Geneva Bible, Biblegateway.com). [18]<\/a> That is, selfish, greedy, mean-spirited people misunderstand the purpose of life, and lose all the more when they win on their own misguided terms. Charles Dickens\u2019s Ebenezer Scrooge (before his transformation) is a fine example of this lose-by-winning outlook. [19]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Openness to Time and Chance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in ancient comedy, so in Shakespeare: in the manner of a benevolent God\u2019s Providence, \u201ctime and chance\u201d are friendly, at least if a character is likeable and generous. Consider the following passage from the Hebrew scriptures, Ecclesiastes <\/em>9:11 (again from the 1599 Geneva Bible, Biblegateway.com):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I returned, and I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, nor also riches to men of understanding, neither yet favor to men of knowledge: but time and chance cometh to them all. [20]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comedy, the characters may want change to happen in just the ways they specify so that they can obtain their heart\u2019s desire. They may even want things to stay the same, but that kind of wish is seldom, if ever, granted. Situations\u2014accidents and time\u2014get the better of even the most passionate resolutions and the most serious invocations of dignity. As the Bible says about humans generally, \u201ctime and chance cometh to them all.\u201d It comes to the swift and the slow; the strong and the weak; the wise and the foolish; the business-savvy and the unsavvy; the learned and the unlearned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A generous and charitable character, as described above, will respond to the coming-on of time and accident in an open-minded, open-hearted way and will thereby befriend change, at least implicitly. The best example of right attitude in this regard may be what the shipwrecked maiden Viola says near the beginning of Twelfth Night: <\/em>neither giving in to despair about the possible loss of her brother nor worrying about the particulars of her new plan to serve a widowed Illyrian noblewoman, Countess Olivia (she ends up serving the Duke of Illyria instead), she declares, \u201cWhat else may hap, to time I will commit.\u201d [21]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viola will face whatever comes with a bold, open spirit. She is both a woman of substance and a comic optimist. In at least some of Shakespeare\u2019s comedies, there\u2019s the hint of a Providence surrounding the patterns of human desire that drive the plays towards resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depth of Character, Interiority<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is possible to deepen comedy and concentrate on human beings\u2019 potential to change, to grow, and to accept the limitations imposed upon them by the world. Some of Shakespeare\u2019s best comedies do just that. His mature work strays from the standard models of ancient comedy and explores the deeper dimension of his characters and subjects. That is something that we can state simply and follow in the various comedies we read: which characters, if any, seem (to borrow a line from Hamlet) to \u201chave that within which passes show\u201d? [22]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the histories and The Merry Wives of Windsor,<\/em> Sir John Falstaff comes immediately to mind as an essentially comic character of depth. Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing <\/em>also deserves mention, as does Rosalynd in As You Like It, <\/em>Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, <\/em>and Viola and Feste in Twelfth Night, <\/em>in their respective ways. The list could be lengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s true that \u201cinteriority\u201d or intense subjectivity is mostly the province of Shakespeare\u2019s tragic characters, but that it is not an absolute requirement in comedy doesn\u2019t keep Shakespeare from exploring it in any of his dramatic modes: comedy, tragedy, history, and romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green Worlds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may prove useful to divide Shakespeare\u2019s deeper comic plays into a couple of very broad patterns. The first is the so-called \u201cgreen world\u201d pattern that critics such as the myth specialist Northrop Frye have so well described. [23]<\/a> In this pattern, some variation on the following will happen: several characters leave the corrupt court or city and go to the forest or some other green space, and at last, when all is well, most will return to the court or city, or are preparing to do so when the play ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The green world, as Frye points out in Anatomy of Criticism <\/em>(1957), isn\u2019t a place where one escapes from reality, it\u2019s a place whose value lies in \u201cvisualizing the world of desire \u2026 as the genuine form of the world that human life tries to imitate.\u201d [24]<\/a> In the green world, one can experiment, learn, and experience life and love with considerable freedom. The place may or may not be \u201cmagical,\u201d but being there will allow certain characters to do or learn things that they couldn\u2019t in their usual environment. What is to be learned, or experienced, or done varies from play to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plays that fit best within this pattern are A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, As You Like It, <\/em>and The Two Gentlemen of Verona; <\/em>among the romance plays, there are The Tempest <\/em>and The Winter\u2019s Tale.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some other plays, we may see a limited or adapted variety of green world: in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, <\/em>Pericles travels across the ocean throughout the play, and thereupon suffers strange accidents and transformations\u2014we might call it a \u201cblue world.\u201d The Welsh countryside in Cymbeline <\/em>is akin to a green world, thanks to the hardy values it teaches the young princes Arviragus and Guiderius. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, <\/em>the hilarious catastrophe toward the play\u2019s end takes place in a community forest that may be treated as akin to a green world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In plays such as Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Love\u2019s Labor\u2019s Lost, <\/em>and The Merchant of Venice, <\/em>by contrast, we are dealing with comedy that works itself out mainly or entirely in urban or courtly (if far from perfect) spaces, and in these spaces the relevant characters must learn, experience, and do whatever they need to do if they are to end up happy. Perhaps it\u2019s just that the total situation itself amounts to the \u201cspecial place\u201d where life and love can mend. In such plays, to borrow a line from Goethe\u2019s Wilhelm Meister, \u201cAmerica is here or nowhere.\u201d [25]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Measure for Measure, <\/em>for example, Duke Vincentio leaves Vienna and lets Angelo take his place administering justice for a while, but he does not go to \u201ca wood outside Vienna.\u201d In Much Ado About Nothing, <\/em>while some key action takes place in a garden, it is not a particularly wild place; Love\u2019s Labor\u2019s Lost <\/em>houses noble ladies out in a field in pitched tents, but this isn\u2019t a transformative setting for them; The Merchant of Venice\u2019s <\/em>most critical action takes place on a beautiful estate named Belmont and in the Venetian setting where Shylock\u2019s trial is held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be tiresome to try to fit every Shakespeare comedy into, or exclude others from, the green world pattern. It\u2019s best just to take the plots and patterns as they come, bearing in mind that very often, \u201cplace\u201d is an active principle in Shakespeare\u2019s plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broader Reflections on Comedy, Then and Now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern situation comedy\u2014Seinfeld<\/em> and Curb Your Enthusiasm <\/em>are sophisticated examples\u2014is remarkably like older varieties of comedy, including New Comedy and Shakespeare\u2019s complex adaptation of it. Both of the shows mentioned seem to straddle the older, harsher and satirical mode (Aristophanic, that is) and the more love-based, somewhat gentler approach taken by the New Comedy and Shakespeare. In Seinfeld <\/em>and Curb, <\/em>a number of silly but mostly sympathetic characters [26]<\/a> get themselves into and out of preposterous scrapes from one episode to the next in a competitive world, and through it all they don\u2019t change much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such characters get insulted, taken advantage of, take advantage of other s (though not mean-spiritedly), fall in and out of love, misunderstand or deceive one another at every turn, and get jobs only to be hilariously fired. They get tied up in in knots over mundane things, obtain pleasure and ease and then throw them away on a whim or due to some error or fit of vanity, and then, as if nothing had ever gone wrong, they\u2019re ready for the next absurd thing life brings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Curb, <\/em>for example, Seinfeld<\/em> co-creator Larry David has all the money a person could want, but being rich doesn\u2019t keep him out of some crazy, ludicrous predicament in every episode. In Seinfeld, <\/em>Jerry Seinfeld can\u2019t stop losing out on his many romantic prospects because there\u2019s always some reason why he can\u2019t be satisfied with whatever lovely, accomplished woman he\u2019s with. George Costanza is guaranteed to blow every opportunity for advancement and success because of his shallowness and neurotic tendencies, and so forth. The self-induced failures never end with these characters, but they remain happy-go-lucky, up for whatever life brings. [27]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comedy in the broadest sense reminds us that we seldom learn as much as we should (or learn anything<\/em>) from our mistakes. As Oscar Wilde\u2019s Prince Paul in Vera, or, The Nihilists <\/em>says, we just dignify those mistakes  with the term, \u201cexperience.\u201d [28]<\/a> But it also gives us credit for being optimists and opportunists in spite of the misfortunes life throws our way. There\u2019s a bit of Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner in many a comic character. That fur-bearing evildoer Wiley Coyote isn\u2019t going to keep the \u201cpoor little Roadrunner\u201d from its appointed rounds (BeepBeep!), nor is Elmer Fudd going to stop Bugs from doing whatever the \u201cwascally wabbit\u201d wants to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comedy, the protagonists\u2019 desires are subject to multifarious deferrals and detours, but not to permanent frustration. Comedy\u2019s disposition of time towards selected characters is friendly: time and chance (accident) are on the comic hero\u2019s side, at least if he or she is likeable and generous. In comedy, life is rich and full of opportunities\u2014La vita \u00e8 bella, <\/em>\u201cLife is beautiful\u201d\u2014as the Italian saying goes, and comedy best reflects that hopeful, sunny approach. [29]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Questions about Shakespeare\u2019s Comic Plays<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To what extent do the main characters step out as strong individuals, people with integrity, depth, or interiority?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014In comedy we are usually dealing with characters who fit into some recognizable pattern or type, but does that truism do justice to the play you\u2019re studying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do the characters seek?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Consider the varieties of desire and the objects of desire. If it\u2019s love, what kind or quality is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Characters seek not only love but also transcendence, security, understanding, clarity, etc. (Evidently, there\u2019s more to life than news, weather, sports, and Cupid\u2019s arrow.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What obstacles stand in the way of characters\u2019 fulfilling their desires?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014There are both internal and external hindrances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014That is, not everything is a matter of stern patriarchs getting in the way, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do the main characters react to the obstacles that stand in their way?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Reactions, as always, can tell us a lot about a character\u2019s depth and understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the disposition of time and chance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Time is on the comic protagonist\u2019s side, but what more can be said in this regard about the play you are studying? Whose side, for example, are time and chance not <\/em>on in a given play? Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Are time, chance, and events dealt with in a mostly realistic manner, or a fantastical one? Why might the playwright be dealing with these things in a \u201cnon-verisimilar\u201d or non-lifelike way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong><\/strong> 2024, revised 2025 Alfred J. Drake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Document Timestamp: 10\/4\/2025 3:48 PM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ENDNOTES<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Johnson, Samuel. \u201cPreface to Shakespeare.<\/em><\/a>\u201d Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 9\/12\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> A useful companion to the study of ancient comedy is Martin T. Dinter\u2019s Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy. <\/em>Cambridge UP, 2019. ISBN-13: 978-0521173889. See also David Konstan\u2019s Roman Comedy. <\/em>Cornell UP, 1983. ISBN-13: 978-0801415319.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition.<\/em> 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93861-6. See Katharine Eisaman Maus\u2019s excellent introductory essay, \u201cShakespearean Comedy.\u201d 121-36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Horace. Ars Poetica<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Poetryfoundation.org. Accessed 9\/28\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> With some supplementing by Renaissance author Julius Caesar Scaliger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Terence was a freedman from Libya, or Roman North Africa. His full name was Publius Terentius Afer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> On the provenance of the structural term \u201ccatastasis,\u201d see this Wikipedia entry<\/a>. Accessed 10\/4\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Of great note, too, will be the perspective and experience of those who, whether by choice or due to some other factor, remain outside the charmed circle of marriage partners at the play\u2019s end. There are other worthy objects to pursue than love\u2014might some characters be more interested in those things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> See 1<\/em> Corinthians<\/em> 7:9, \u201cit is better to marry than to burn.\u201d 1599 Geneva Bible, Biblegateway.com. Accessed 10\/2\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> If this formulation sounds unattractive, that\u2019s probably because we twenty-first-century \u201cchildren of the Romantics\u201d think of individual identity, the \u201cself,\u201d as something mostly independent from exterior influences and controls. In Shakespeare\u2019s time, the Early Modern Era, identity was still to a considerable degree defined as it had been during the Middle Ages, in relation to other human beings, in light of one\u2019s social duties and obligations. These factors defined one\u2019s \u201coffice\u201d or station in life. This way of defining identity was changing in Shakespeare\u2019s time, but it had not yet changed to the extent that it has now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> It almost goes without saying that we will find Shakespeare casting art in this light, as a kind of social magic allied with the other positive institutions and forces in human life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> See Leucippe and Clitophon<\/em><\/a>by Achilles Tatius, and Daphnis and Chloe<\/em><\/a>by Longus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> See Sidney\u2019s The Countess of Pembroke\u2019s Arcadia<\/em><\/a>(MDZ), <\/em>Boccaccio\u2019s Decameron<\/em><\/a>(Gutenberg e-text), <\/em>and Matteo Bandello\u2019s collection as translated by Fran\u00e7ois de Belleforest and thence Englished by William Paynter as The Palace of Pleasure<\/em><\/a>(Gutenberg e-text).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, <\/em>for example, is an immature young man, a disappointingly typical creature of his gender and social class. Hero deserves better, but he\u2019s all she\u2019s going to get. Sometimes a female character in Shakespeare will be enamored of a male character who is manifestly beneath her dignity, as happens with Helen chasing after the supremely annoying Bertram in All\u2019s Well That Ends Well.<\/em> The man is never for one minute worthy of her notice, much less her love. In Measure for Measure, <\/em>arguably none <\/em>of the marriages seem suitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> David E. Anderson\u2019s 2008 article \u201cWas Shakespeare Catholic?<\/a>\u201d in PBS\u2019s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly explores this controversial topic. Accessed 9\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> See, for example, Augustine\u2019s use of the term \u201ccharity\u201d as he develops it throughout The Confessions<\/em><\/a>. Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 10\/4\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/a> Shakespeare. The Comical History of The Merchant of Venice.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 467-521. See 508, 4.1.182, where Portia explains that \u201cThe quality of mercy is not strained.\u201d That is, one can\u2019t force another person to show mercy; it must come from within. Mercy, here, or compassion, is very similar to charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/a> See Matthew<\/em> 16:25<\/a>. Geneva Bible, 1599. Biblegateway.com. Accessed 9\/8\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/a> Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 10\/4\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/a> See Ecclesiastes<\/em> 9:11<\/a>. <\/em>Geneva Bible, 1599. Biblegateway.com. Accessed 9\/8\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 743-97. See 746, 1.2.59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. <\/em>Second Quarto with additions from the Folio. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 358-447. See 365, 1.2.85.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/a> Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. <\/em>See his Anatomy of Criticism. <\/em>1973 repr. Orig. pub. 1957. See Third Essay: The Mythos of Spring, 163-86.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/a> Frye, Ibid.,<\/em> 184.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/a> Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Wilhelm Meister<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Vol. 1, 381. Accessed 9\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[26]<\/a> One should expect robust and contentious views on which characters are the most or least \u201clikeable\u201d since they are self-absorbed and can be insensitive to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[27]<\/a> As an aside, we might pay tribute to one of the most successful efforts resembling the harsher, older style of comedy, the cable series Veep, <\/em>starring Julia-Louis Dreyfus (a Seinfeld alumna) as an almost sociopathic Vice President who ends up President when her boss resigns, and then narrowly loses the next highly unusual election. Back-stabbing talk and action abounds, as do viciously witty barbs and insults. Through it all, the viewer can only hope \u201cD.C.\u201d isn\u2019t this <\/em>horrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[28]<\/a> Wilde, Oscar. Vera, or, The Nihilists<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> Prince Paul\u2019s full remark is, \u201cExperience [is] \u2026 the name men give to their mistakes. I never commit any.\u201d Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 10\/1\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[29]<\/a> This attitude contrasts markedly with that of tragedy, where the world is stark and unforgiving, and where we follow the linear path staked out for us by the gods or by our errors to an inexorable demise. Tragedy is about accountability, and nothing that\u2019s done can truly be fixed or undone. Our attention is riveted upon the thoughts and actions of a superior character in confrontation with a harsh, implacable world, a world of stone that seems determined, or designed, to crush human yearnings after permanence and greatness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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