comedy

Literary genre that aims to make its audience laugh. Drama, verse, and prose can all have a comic aim. Stereotypically, comedy has a happy or amusing ending, as opposed to tragedy, but it can also embody a far subtler structure and purpose. Traditional comedy, like tragedy, has human weakness as its primary focus but, instead of being destroyed, in comedy the characters are mostly rescued from their faults and often learn from them. The laughter is typically provided by ‘licensed fools’, whose role is to expose and develop the flaws of the characters who take themselves too seriously, are silly, or are mistaken. The fool may ironically prove to be the saviour of the other characters. The final act in a comedy resolves all conflict, with the common exception of a single bitter character, who provides dramatic contrast.

The comic tradition has undergone many changes since its Greek roots; the earliest comedy developed in ancient Greece, in the topical and fantastic satires of Aristophanes. Great comic dramatists include the English William Shakespeare Irish George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, Italian Carlo Goldoni, and the French Molière and Pierre de Marivaux. Genres of comedy include pantomime, satire, farce, black humour, and commedia dell'arte.