Epicene Essay

In the introduction to our edition of Epicene, Gordon Campbell takes a view of the play as “untainted by overt morality: it contains few concessions to the usual values of comedy; there is no affirmation of the value of friendship or love, no banishing of villains, no triumph of happiness” (xvii). What I believe Campbell has failed to address is the existence of sub-genres of comedy. The style of comedy he describes was common in the Renaissance, but was not the only style at the time. The affirmation of friendship or love, and banishing villains is entirely too centered on assuming that Epicene is a Romantic Comedy. Epicene, I argue is a lot darker and leans more to the sub-genre of Satirical Comedy. Satirical Comedy is centered around the …show more content…
Typically, in a Romantic Comedy we follow the main character in his path to which he transforms and in a comedy specifically will end with a happy ending. In a Romantic Comedy, we are lead to believe that from the discovery that Epicene is actually rather boisterous, Morose will undergo a transformation. Following these startling discoveries in a Romantic Comedy we expect that Morose and Epicene will figure out a way to cope. Perhaps it will encourage Morose to listen to others and allow for a happy conclusion. This is, however not the case. Morose discovers he has been fooled and immediately attempts to rid himself of Epicene, but he is deceived again. Even by the end of the play, Morose has not changed and still finds that quiet women are the greatest women to have. He doesn’t compromise just as his allegorical reference to an ignorant lord would imply. It seems that this comedy nearly becomes a tragedy for Morose as it turns out his wife is in fact a boy and that he has been duped in even more ways as the play goes on. It is such a ridiculous notion that a young boy could fool a man into marrying him and the whole scenario is quite comical in an ironic sense. He married who he thought to be the perfect woman and got a boy