Comedy

noted, is used to “sugarcoat the pill” of challenges in human life, and the romantic comedy genre follows this value (Casper, 260). Comedy, as a whole, reveals the “fragmentation of man” in a digestible, enjoyable manner for audiences. Romantic comedies, specifically, reveal the fragmentation of each partner in a relationship and the fragmentation of the relationship. Throughout the history of film, romantic comedies have stayed true to the classical conventions of the genre by presenting a…

The Text The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays. The first recorded performance of the comedy was on December 28, 1594, as part of the Christmas festivities at Gray’s Inn in London. The exact date that the play was written is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that it was written sometime during 1589-1594 and between The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love’s Labour’s Lost. It was first printed in the First Folio in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, and is…

Slapstick comedy, That may bring to mind the Three Stooges or Charlie Chaplin. Slapstick is often thought of as a low humor style of comedy filled with farce and a touch of animated violence. And yet, that doesn't tell the whole story and slapstick is much older than you might think. Slapstick comedy is primarily a physical kind of comedy based around pratfalls and mild comic violence, smacks in the head, pokes in the eyes, people falling down, etc. While it is often thought of as low comedy,…

A Timeline of Laughter: Comedy Through the Years Audiences have been entertained by stand-up comedians for more than a century. From the vaudeville shows of the 1800s to the musical stand-up acts of modern times, the history of stand-up comedy is rich – and its evolution has consisted of a fascinating timeline filled with tears and laughter. Whether a person prefers comedy delivered with dry wit, ribald cynicism, or silly banter meant to engage the audience, there is something for everyone…

than those written from a non-comedic, dramatic point of view. In Toward a Theory of Comedy by Ruth Nevo, she discusses the different philosophic views from a comedic/tragic writing. By comparing laughter and comedy – which she examines as two different things with a few overlapping parts – she shows what exactly makes a comedy a comedy. A common theme in Nevo’s writing was how the Greek philosophers viewed comedies. The Greeks appreciated the drama and integrated it into their lives. They made…

Stand-up comedy is a form of comedy that, for the most part, is conveyed by a performance entertainer talking straightforwardly to the crowd in an unconstrained way. In stand-up comedy, the feedback of the audience is immediate and essential for the comedian’s performance. The gathering expects an exceptional act and a constant flow of snickers, and the entertainer is constantly under pressure to perform. Stand-up, in the structure it is known today, is an emphatically American creation, with…

The Art of Offense The art of stand up comedy is one that has been around for decades, from the early Bob Hope, to Don Rickles, to the more modern Anthony Jeselnik. This form of communication has been used not only to make people laugh, but to convey messages, thoughts, ideas and societal values. People often overlook this form of performance, or worse, they seek to limit it. This is a terrible thing that is happening in our society, people looking to censor art, tell people what they can and…

masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, remains popular with the public because of the use of many different techniques to entice the readers. His complex characters resonate with readers new and old, which adds to the Divine Comedy being a classic. Dante, who has an interesting life, constructs a story about something that people were unable to picture or even think about: Hell. The idea of Hell was an interesting concept that Dante can exploit when he wrote the Divine Comedy. Dante also…

Comedy is an element that surrounds us in our everyday lives, and is a very powerful tool in the media today. There are certain characteristics that determine whether a joke is funny, one of them being how the joke is told. One question to consider is the impact of comedy in media, based on how it is shown through television. In a video clip called “The Curious Case of Flight 370”, John Stewart uses humor techniques to critique CNN’s coverage on the topic and tries convincing the audience how…

believed in the Christian version of good and evil, complete with its religious requirements. Dante’s premise for describing good and evil was highly influenced by the medieval religiosity of the time. Dante wrote The Inferno as part of The Divine Comedy in 1300 from Florence, Italy, where the Catholic Church and the Pope preached that the answer to all things began with accepting God. God was to symbolize all that was not self-indulgent and existed within all men. Dante worked around the…