Drama coursework

The main difference between a comedy and a tragedy lies in their

perspectives and outcomes. Tragedies focus on human suffering,
isolation, and inevitable downfall, often ending in death and
arousing pity and fear. Comedies, on the other hand, emphasize
humor, character idiosyncrasies, and renewal, leading to happy and
positive conclusions. While tragedies highlight human limitations
and fate, comedies celebrate life's absurdities and potential for
improvement.

Tragedies in general take the philosophical view that life is a

misfortune because it is filled with pain and suffering and always
inevitably ends in Wedeath. Comedies in general take the view that
life is ridiculous because most people behave like fools with
unrealistic pretensions and expectations. Both viewpoints are valid.
Most of us see life as a grim and pointless struggle at some times,
while at other times, when we are in a good mood, we see life as a
game to be played and not as something to be taken seriously.

Laughter vs. Tears

While both comedy and tragedy point to human foibles, the manner
in which these foibles are treated as well as the outcome greatly
differ.

TRAGEDY
 Emphasis upon human shortcomings which effect suffering

 The hero is often isolated

 The hero realizes errors too late

 The hero and others die in the end/suffer a great...

Classical tragedy – elements include a tragic hero who is of higher
than ordinary moral worth.

Such a man is exhibited as suffering a change in fortune from

happiness to misery because of a

mistaken act, to which he is led by “an error in judgement” or his

tragic flaw. Most often the

mistaken act ultimately leads to the hero’s death. We feel pity for
the tragic hero because he is

not an evil man, so his misfortune is greater than he deserves.

There is also a sense that the hero

could have been more if not for his tragic flaw. Comic elements may
be present in a classical

tragedy.

Let us begin with tragedy.

The first great theC:rist of dramatic art was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.),

whose discussion of tragedy in Poetics has dominated critical

thought

eversince. A very brief summary of Aristotle's view will be helpful.

A tragedy, so Aristotle wrote, is the imitation in dramatic form of

anaction that is serious and complete, with incidents arousing pity

and

fearwith which it effects a catharsis of such emotions. The language

used is pleasurable and appropriate throughout to the situation. The

chief characters are noble personages ("better than ourselves," says

Aristotle), and the actions th~y perform are noble actions. The plot

involves a change in the protagonist's fortune, in which he usually,

but

not always, falls from happiness to misery. The protagonist, though

not

perfect, is hardly a bad person; his misfortunes result not from

character

deficiencies but rather from what Aristotle calls hamartia, a criminal

act committed in ignorance of some material fact or even for the

sake

ofa greater good. A tragic plot has organic unity: the events follow
not

just after one another but because of one another. The best tragic
plots

involve a reversal (a change from one state of things within the play

to its opposite) or a discovery (a change from ignorance to

knowledge)

or both.

In the more extensive account that follows, we will not attempt

to delineate the boundaries of tragedy or necessarily describe it at

its greatest. Instead, i we will describe a common understanding of

tragedy as a point of departure for further discussion. Nor shall we

enter into the endless controversies over what Aristotle meant by

"catharsis" or over which of his statements are meant to apply to

all tragedies and which only to the best ones. The important thing

is that Aristotle had::important insights into the nature of some of

the greatest tragedies and that, rightly or wrongly interpreted, his

conceptions are the basis for a kind of archetypal notion of tragedy

that has dominated critical thought. What are the central features of

that archetype? (The following summary retains Aristotle's reference

to the tragic protagonist in masculine terms; however, the definitions

apply equally to female protagonists such as Sophocles's Antigone

and Shakespeare's Cleopatra.)

1. The tragic hero is a man of noble stature. He has a greatness

about him. He is not an ordinary man but one of outstanding quality.

In Greek and in Shakespearean tragedy, he is usually a prince or a king.

We may, if we wish, set down this predilection of former times for kings

as tragic heroes as an undemocratic prejudice that regarded some men

to be of nobler "blood" than others-preeminent by virtue of their aris-

tocratic birth. But it is only partially that. We may with equal validity

regard the hero's kingship as the symbol rather than as the cause of his

greatness. He is great not primarily by virtue of his kingship but by his

possession of extraordinary powers, by qualities of passion or aspiration

or nobility of mind. The tragic hero's kingship is also a symbol of his

initial good fortune, the mark of his high position. If the hero's fall is

to arouse in us the emotions of pity and fear, it must be a fall from a

height. A clumsy man tripping over his shoelace is comic, not tragic-
even if it could cause him serious physical pain.

2. The tragic hero is good, though not perfect, and his fall results

from his committing what Aristotle calls "an act of injustice" (hamar-'

cia) either through ignorance or from a conviction that some greater

good will be served. This act is, nevertheless, a criminal one, and the

good hero is still responsible for it, even if he is totally unaware of its

criminality and is acting out of the best intentions. Some later critics

ignore Aristotle's insistence on the hero's commission of a guilty act

and choose instead to blame the hero's fall on a flaw in his character

or personality. Such a notion misrepresents Aristotle's view both of

tragedy and of a basically just natural order. It implies a world in which

personality alone, not one's actions, can bring on catastrophe.

Aristotle notwithstanding, there is a critical tradition that

attributes the fall of the hero to a so-called "tragic flaw"-some fault of

character such as inordinate ambition, quickness to anger, a tendency

to jealousy, or overweening pride. Conversely, the protagonist's vul-

nerability has been attributed to some excess of virtue-a nobility of

character that unfits him for life among ordinary mortals. But whatever

it be-a criminal act, a fault of character, or excessive virtue-the

protagonist is personally responsible for his downfall.

3. The •• downfall, therefore, is his own fault, the result

of his own free dhoice-e-not the result of pure accident or someone

else's villainy oj· ,some overriding malignant fate. Accident, vil-

lainy, or fate may contribute to the downfall but only as cooperat-

ing agents: they .are not alone responsible. The combination of the
hero's greatness and his responsibility for his own downfall is what

entitles us to describe his downfall as tragic rather than as merely

pathetic. In common speech these two adjectives are often confused.

If a father of ten children is accidentally killed at a street corner,

the event, strictly speaking, is pathetic, not tragic. When a weak

man succumbs to his weakness and comes to a bad end, the event

should be called] pathetic, not tragic. The tragic event involves a

fall from greatness, brought about, at least partially, by the agent's

free action. ,

4. Nevertheless, the hero's misfortune is not wholly deserved. The

punishment exceeds the crime. We do not come away from tragedy

with the feeling that "he got what he had coming to him" but rather

with the sad sense of a waste of human potential. For what most

impresses us about.the tragic hero is not his weakness but his greatness.

He is, in a sense, "larger than life," or, as Aristotle said, "better than

ourselves." He reveals to us the dimensions of human possibility. He

is a person mainly admirable, and his fall therefore fills us with pity

and fear. i

5. Yet the tragic fall is not pure loss. Though it may result in the

protagonist's death, it involves, before his death, some increase in

awareness, some, gain in self-knowledge-as Aristotle puts it, some

"discovery"-a chknge from ignorance to knowledge. On the level of

plot, the disco~eH may be merely learning the truth about some fact

or situation of wb,i!ch the protagonist was ignorant, but on the level of

character it is accldmpanied or followed by a significant insight, a fuller

self-knowledge, an increase not only in knowledge but in wisdom.

Often this increase in wisdom involves some sort of reconciliation

with the universe or with the protagonist's situation. He exits not

I,

cursing his fate bj1utaccepting it and acknowledging that it is to some

degree just.

6. Though it arouses solemn emotions-pity and fear, says Aristo-

tle, but compassion and awe might be better terms-tragedy, when well

performed, does ddt leave its audience in a state of depression. Though

we cannot be sure.what Aristotle meant by his term "catharsis," some

sort of emotional' release at the end is a common experience of those

who witness gre'id tragedies on the stage. They have r:greatly movea by
pity, fear, and associated emotions, but they are not left

emotionally beaten down or dejected. Instead, there may be a feeling

almost of exhilaration. This feeling is a response to the tragic action.

With the fall of the hero and his gain in wisdom or self-knowledge,

there is, besides the appalling sense of human waste, a fresh recognition

of human greatness, a sense that human life has unrealized potentiali-

ties. Though the hero may be defeated, he at least has dared greatly,

and he gains understanding from his defeat.

The most essential difference between tragedy and comedy, par-

ticularly scornful comedy, is in their depiction of human nature.

Where tragedy emphasizes human greatness, comedy delineates human

weakness. Where tragedy celebrates human freedom, comedy points

up human limitations. Wherever human beings fail to measure up to

their own resolutions or to their own self-conceptions, wherever they

are guilty of hypocrisy, vanity, or folly, wherever they fly in the face

of good sense and rational behavior, comedy exhibits their absurdity

and invites us to laugh at them. Where tragedy' tends to say, with

Shakespeare's Hamlet, "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in

reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and

admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a

god!" comedy says, with Shakespeare's Puck, "Lord, what fools these

mortals be!"

Because comedy exposes human folly, its function is partly critical

and corrective. Where tragedy challenges us with: a vision of human

possibility, comedy reveals to us a spectacle of human ridiculousness

that it makes us want to avoid. No doubt, we should not exaggerate

this function of comedy. We go to the theater primarily for enjoyment,

not to receive lessons in personality or character development. Nev-

ertheless, laughter may be educative at the same time that it is enjoy-

able. The comedies of Aristophanes and Moliere, of Ben Jonson and

Congreve, are, first of all, good fun, but, secondly, they are antidotes

for human folly

Romantic or so/tiling comedy, as opposed to scornful comedy, and

as exemplified by li-rianyplays of Shakespeare-A Midsummer Night's

Dream, As You Li~ It, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The

Tempest, for instance-puts its emphasis upon sympathetic rather than

ridiculous characters. These characters-likable, not given up to folly

or vanity-are placed in various kinds of difficulties from which, at

the end of the play, they are rescued, attaining their ends or having

their good fortunes restored. Though different from the protagonists

of scornful comedy, however, these characters are not the command-

ing or lofty figures that tragic protagonists are. They are sensible and

good rather than noble, aspiring, and grand. They do not strike us with

awe as the tragic protagonist does. They do not so challengingly test

the limits of human possibility. In short, they move in a smaller world.

Romantic comedies, therefore, do not occupy a different universe from

satiric comedies; they simply lie at opposite sides of the same territory.

The romantic comedy, moreover, though its protagonists are sympa-

thetic, has usually a number of lesser characters whose folly is held

up to ridicule. The satiric comedy, on the other hand, frequently has

minor characters=-often a pair of young lovers-who are sympathetic

and likable. The difference between the two kinds of comedy may be

only a matter of whether we laugh at the primary or at the secondary

characters.

There are oth~r differences between comedy and tragedy. The

norms of comedy are primarily social. Where tragedies tend to isolate

their protagonists ':0 emphasize their uniqueness, comedies put their

protagonists in the] midst of a group to emphasize their common-

ness. Where tragic! protagonists possess overpowering individuality,

so that plays are oHen named after them (for example, Oedipus Rex,

Otheno) , comic pr6f.agonists tend to be types of individuals, and the

plays in which the~'lappear are often named for the type (for example,

Moliere's The Misd.~thrope, Congreve's The Double Dealer). We judge

tragic pro~agonists I~y absolute moral stan~ards, by h.ow far they soar
above society. We [udge comic protagonists by SOCialstandards, by

how well they adjust to society and conform to the expectations of

the g~oup. . Ii. . . .

Finally, comic plots are less likely than tragic plots to exhibit the

high degree of orgapic unity-of logical cause-and-effect progression-

that Aristotle required of tragedy. Plausibility, in fact, is not usually the

central characteristic of a comic plot. Unlikely coincidences, improb-

able disguises, mistaken identities-these are the stuff of which comedy

ismade; and, as lor.g as they make us laugh and, at the same time, help

to illuminate human nature and human folly, we need not greatly care.

Not that plausibility is no longer important-only that other things are

more important, and these other things are often achieved by the most

outrageous violations of probability.

This is particularly true regarding the comic ending. Convention-

ally, comedies have a happy ending. The happy ending is, indeed, a con-

vention of comedy, which is to say that a comedy ends happily because

comedies end happily-that is the nature of the form-not necessarily

because a happy ending is a plausible outcome of the events that have

preceded it. The greatest masters of comedy-Aristophanes, Shake-

speare, Moliere-c-have often been extremely arbitrary in the manner in

which they achieved their endings. The accidental discovery of a lost

will, rescue by an act of divine intervention (deus ex machina), the

sudden reform of a mean-spirited person into a friendly person-such

devices have been used by the greatest comic writers. And, even where

the ending is achieved more plausibly, comedy asks us to forget for

the time being that in actuality life has no endings except for death.

Marriage, which provides the ending for so many comedies, is really a

beginning.