HISTORY OF COMEDY
Type	Structure	Character	Language	Focus	Influenced by	Media similarities
Old Greek Comedy	Intricate structure patterns—improbable plot—unities	Exagger-ated costumes—masks define characters	Satirical, farcial dialogue	Local political , social reform	Aris-tophanes	sit coms
Greek Middle Comedy—all plays lost—Plutus, Ecclesiaszuae	Eliminates complex patterns, chorus often eliminated	stock characters used, no ex-aggerated costumes		Less local focus, more international focus—no political criticism	Plutus, Ecclesias-zuae	sit coms
Greek New Comedy (Menander)	set formula: happy idea, application of idea, conclusion with union of sexes	Stock characters: stubborn father, clever slave, young lovers	Famous quotable quotes—romantic and satiric comedies	Relation-ships,--individuals	Menander	television sitcoms
Roman comedy (Plautus, Terence)	Blocking agent, plot of intrigue	Comedy types—fussing fathers, bragging soldiers, etc.		Relation-ships—conflict between generations—more to entertain than to reform	Plautus, Terence
1500 years	between the	Roman	comedies	and the	Renaissance	comedies
Renaissance comedies—British	imitated Roman comedies—kept unites—blocking agent, discovery scene	Kept Roman types—added British types: roisters, “mechani-cals:	Romantic and satiric	Aim to entertain, and /or to reform	Influenced by Roman comedy—Shakes-peare, Jonson	You’ve Got Mail Grumpy Old Men
Restoration and 1700s-- comedy of manners; comedia dell’arte sentimental comedy	cynical in tone; improvisations man is basically good	people are selfish, pleasure-loving stock characters middle class characters	witty repartee little wit	upperclass societal conventions:love, marriage, romance	Etherege, Wycherly, Congreve ; (later Austen, Wilde)	Darma and Greg comedy variety:Car-ol Burnett
19^th century		characters clearly good/evil	overly dramatic			melodrama today
20^th century problem plays tragic-comedy	issues are more important than people	people represent problems areas		social issues	Shaw	MASH