Comedy

“ The peculiar quality and charm of our comedy is that, deriving from sources not only distinct, but remote in literary habitat,—scriptural, allegorical, farcical, pastoral, romantic, classical, historical, or purely native and social,—it has not dissipated itself in a thousand streamlets, but has carried down deposits from each tributary at its best. In Love's Labor's Lost, Two Angry Women, As You Like It, Old Wives' Tale, Every Man in His Humour, we find, as in a miner's pan, 'colours' from vastly different soils. ”

“ In comedy we have a vision of the victory of the intrinsically assured stability of the wholly personal soul-life, the laughter of which resolves everything through the medium and into the medium of such life. ”

“ The idea of The Human Comedy was at first as a dream to me, one of those impossible projects which we caress and then let fly; a chimera that gives us a glimpse of its smiling woman's face, and forthwith spreads its wings and returns to a heavenly realm of phantasy. ”

“ Has he maintained the dignity of the drama? He will answer, "Of course! We are living in the era of progression. Comedy is a success! All the world is laughing! Success! Success! We are superior to those who have gone before! We make the world laugh!" ”

“ This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, etc. To this succeeds a state of society from which the same sort of affectation and pretence are banished by a greater knowledge of the world or by their successful exposure on the stage; and which by neutralising the materials of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all—but the sentimental. Such is our modern comedy. ”

“ The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well-intended halfness; a non-performance of what is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, the frustrated expectation, [Pg 139] the break of continuity in the intellect, is comedy; and it announces itself physically in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.
With the trifling exception of the stratagems of a few beasts and birds, there is no seeming, no halfness in nature, until the appearance of man. ”

“ Why not write a comedy? So the thought came. I had never written anything save a few ill-spelt letters; but no matter. To find a plot was the first thing. Take Marshall for hero and Alice for heroine, surround them with the old gentlemen who dined at the table d'hôte, flavour with the Italian countess who smoked cigars when there were not too many strangers present. ”

“ The best and most genuine kind of comedy, because the most dramatic, is that of character or humour, in which the persons introduced upon the stage are left to betray their own folly by their words and actions. ”

“ Comedy demands action vitalized by a plot that is capable of revealing the social significance of the individual: an action of sufficient scope and reality to display the spirit of society in individual types and manners, or in character and sentiment; a plot sufficiently urgent to interest us, not only in the phenomena, in the concomitants, of every deed, but in its motive and inherent passion. ”

“ In this production of a youth of twenty we may find a foretaste of that keen relish in watching the human comedy, that vigorous scorn of avarice, that infectious laughter at pretentious folly, which accompanied the novelist throughout his life. ”

“ We have so far dwelt on those elements of comedy which seem plainly derivable from simple forms of fun, as seen in child’s play and the laughter of primitive folk. There remains what is in some ways the most interesting feature, the comic presentation of character in action and speech. ”

“ It may be added, that in comedy this art is infinitely less, for there the characters come upon the stage with very little artifice or plot; the whole scheme is so connected that we see it at once, and the plan and disposition of the parts make a small part of its excellence, in comparison of a gloss of pleasantry diffused over each scene, which is more the happy effect of a lucky moment, than of long consideration. ”

“ They are short, not taking much more time than a single act in an ordinary comedy. Yet they have the substance of comedy, in that they give pictures of real life and manners, containing much sprightliness of dialogue, and not a little of humour and character, and varied with amusing incident and allusion drawn fresh from the writer's observation, with the dews of nature upon them. ”

“ He has defined Comedy as the contrast of the middle way, the way of common sense, with our human vagaries, "Comme un point fixe fait remarquer l'emportement des autres." Comedy, he says, teaches the world to understand what ails it...."Comedy is the fountain of sound sense," and again, "the use of the true comedy is to awaken thoughtful laughter." ”

“ The legitimate object of comedy is the truthful delineation of manners. In life, manners are displayed by what people do, and by what they say. Comedy, therefore, ought to consist of action and dialogue. ”

“ It seems undeniable that this “artificial” comedy can make good its claims to be entertaining. It has vivacity and stirring movement, the full frolicsomeness of the practical joke, and it abounds in scenes of voluminous gaiety. ”

“ The comedy of external life may present, by means of typical individuals and conventional manners, a reflex of that which is actual, or a criticism of it; and such a play will be realistic or satirical. The comedy of the inner life, on the other hand, since it reveals the characteristics of humanity in the heat and moment of passion, may present a vision of the ideal made concrete ”

“ But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of the vis comica, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough, hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the realm. ”

“ Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its object, an affectation of gallantry and of ennui, with anecdotes of distinguished visitors, out of which the screaming fun has quite evaporated, make up the staple of these faded mementos of ancient watering-place. Yet how much superior is our comedy of to-day? ”

“ Comedy is a feigned action, in which is represented the ridiculous, in order to correct it; it rebukes with a smile, and corrects with a facetious stroke: the matter of comedy is civil life, of which it is an imitation: it ought to be every where enlivened with all possible care, to have fine and easy strokes of wit and satire, which present the ridiculous in the most glaring point of view ”

“ REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE STATE OF COMEDY, AND OTHER WORKS OF GENIUS, WITH REGARD TO THEIR DURATION. I now speak particularly of comedy; for we must observe that between that and other works of literature, especially tragedy, there is an essential difference, which the enemies of antiquity will not understand, and which I shall endeavour palpably to show.
All works show the age in which they are produced; they carry its stamp upon them; the manners of the times are impressed by indelible marks. ”

“ It is quite otherwise with Comedy, which should be mere common life, and not one jot bigger. Every character should speak upon the stage, not only what it would utter in the situation there represented, but in the same manner in which it would express it. For which reason I cannot allow rhymes in comedy, unless they were put into the mouth, and came out of the mouth of a mad poet. But it is impossible to deceive one’s self enough (nor is it the least necessary in comedy) to suppose a dull rogue of an usurer cheating, or ‘gross Jean’ blundering in the finest rhymes in the world. ”

“ Well, if there were as much color, adventure, and excellent broad comedy in the bar-room as in the best of these stories a lady might even forgive the profanity and the filthy floor. And you must remember that life, for all the realists may say, is not literature. We take our broad comedy, selected and arranged, from an author. Life is like a variety show; we sit through a deal of vulgar stupidity for the sake of a laugh or two. ”

“ Such are both the penalties and the profits of that obsession by the sense of an ampler comedy in human things—latent and a little lost, but all responsive to the interested squeeze, to the roused passion of pursuit—than even quite expert and anxious preliminaries of artistic relation to any theme may always be trusted to give the measure of. ”

“ But as they vary in function and result, so these kinds of comedy differ in the quality of action which each may present. The play of convention and manners can use only the externals of action, actions that neither strike deep nor spring from the depths, for such a play aims to reproduce appearances or merely to re-create them—to criticise and correct rather than construct. The play of character and passion, not the so-called realistic, but idealistic, selects for presentation actions whose springs are in the inner life ”

“ Perhaps it is impossible to include under any single general conception works which differ from each other as widely as The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest; but if we cannot seize it as a whole, we may see from a little distance this side and that of comedy as understood by Shakespeare. Its vital centre is not an idea, an abstraction, a doctrine, a moral thesis, but something concrete—persons involved in an action. ”

“ The irresistible broad humour, which is the predominant quality of this drama, is so exquisitely interspersed with touches of nature more refined, with occasional flashes of wit, and with events so interesting, that, if the production is not of that perfect kind which the most rigid critic demands, he must still acknowledge it as a bond, given under the author's own hand, that he can, if he pleases, produce, in all its various branches, a complete comedy. ”

“ It must not, therefore, be imagined that it was without the knowledge and will of the poet that a heroic drama turns out a comedy in his hands, and ends in the manner of Comedy with a marriage of convenience. ”

“ The grimaces and caperings of buffoonery, the gymnastics of the punster and the parodist, the revels of pure nonsense may be, at their best, a refreshment and delight, but they are not comedy, and have proved in effect not a little hostile to the existence of comedy. ”

“ Comedy presents to us men as we find them in the ordinary intercourse of the world, with all the weaknesses, follies, caprice, prejudices, and absurdities which a near and familiar view of them discovers. ”

“ Such a comedy, written at such an age, requires some consideration. As the lighter species of dramatick poetry professes the imitation of common life, of real manners, and daily incidents, it apparently presupposes a familiar knowledge of many characters, and exact observation of the passing world ”

“ In a converse way, however, and in contrast as such to the above generally prosaic type of treatment, the modern world, too, has elaborated a world of comedy which is both truly comic and poetical in its nature. The fundamental note here again is the cheeriness of disposition, the inexhaustible resources of fun, no matter what may be the nature of miscarriage or bad luck, the exuberance and dash of what is at bottom nothing better than pure tomfoolery, and, in a word, exploited self-assurance. ”

“ In his work, accordingly, we find narratives of single and independent interest, if not exactly plot, and an adaptation of that which is abstract to purposes of amusement. We find characters with motive, and sometimes personality, contemporary manners, witty dialogue, satire; and in at least the Play of Love, an adumbration of the sentimental, dare we say romantic, possibilities of comedy, to be realized when it should lxvii have thrown allegory and scholasticism to the winds. ”

“ For a like cause, comedy confines its views to the characters of private and inferior persons. For the truth of character, which is the spring of humour, being necessarily, as was observed, to be shewn through the medium of action, and the actions of the great being usually such as excite the pathos, it follows of course, that these cannot, with propriety, be made the actors in comedy. ”

“ Comedy, on the other hand, was tending already, long before the civil troubles, to social satire and the life-like representation of contemporary character and manners, so that prose was its only effective instrument. ”

“ For a moment I was inclined to think that the scene I had just witnessed was a gigantic piece of bombast—that he had been what he called "playing the comedy" with a view to making himself interesting and important. ”

“ In the Rollicking Comedy, then, everything must be comical. The term “everything” is imperative; it means idea, title, plot, every situation, every scene, every insert, every reference, every character, every setting, every action, every suggestion. “It is to laugh!” Comedy demands exhaustive treatment of detail. It is insufficient to say that a character performs an act in a funny way ”

“ But when the art of Extemporal Comedy flourished among these children of fancy, the universal pleasure these representations afforded to a whole vivacious people, and the recorded celebrity of their great actors, open a new field for the speculation of genius. ”

“ The Comedy of the World, is one of the most ingenious and amusing of the modern stage. It has great neatness of dialogue, and considerable originality, as well as sprightliness of character. It is, however, chargeable with a grossness which is common to modern plays, we mean, the grossness of fashionable life in the men, and the grossness of fine sentiment in the women. ”