Shakespearean Comedy Essay

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Shakespearean Comedy Because of his humanist education, Shakespeare was familiar with classical (Greek and Latin) comedy. Greek "old comedy" (e.g. Aristophanes, ca.448-380 B.C.) was generally satirical and frequently political in nature. Greek "new comedy" (e.g. Menander, ca. 343-291 B.C.) involved sex and seduction and often showed youth outwitting old age. Although Menander's plays have survived only in fragments, Shakespeare would have known his work through the Latin adaptations of the Roman poet Terence (ca. 190-159 B.C.). The Latin comedies of Terence and another Roman poet, Plautus (ca. 258?-184 B.C.), were much studied in Elizabethan schools. (From his humanist grammar school education, Shakespeare also learned about characters such as Theseus and Hippolyta or Pyramus and Thisbe, whose story is found in Ovid's Metamorphoses). From Terence and Plautus, Shakespeare learned how to organize a plot in a way modern editors may represent as a five-act structure. Loosely speaking, it moves from: 1. A situation with tensions or implicit conflict (Exposition) 2. Implicit conflict is developed (Rising Action) 3. Conflict reaches height; frequently an impasse (Turning Point) 4. Things begin to clear up (Falling Action) 5. Problem is resolved, knots untied (Conclusion) Thus, the action of a comedy traces a movement from conflict to the resolution of conflict, from some sort of (generally figurative) bondage to freedom, despite obstacles, complications, reversals, and discoveries. It ends with celebration and unity. This stage often includes the expulsion or elimination of characters so lost or misguided that they cannot be accommodated or restored to society (e.g. Shylock, Malvolio). Hence a touch of sadness or reality may impinge on the final celebration. This structure differentiates Shakespeare's comedies from earlier works that presented
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