• What is comedy?
• Origin of comedy
• Types of comedy
• Examples of comedy

We explain what comedy is and what was the origin of this wonderful dramatic genre. Also, the types of comedy that exist and examples.

Comedies are characterized by evoking laughter and having a happy ending.

What is comedy?

Comedy is called one of the oldest dramatic genres, opposed in its theme to the tragedy, that is, characterized by plots Y narrations that evoke laughter and have a happy ending. As described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in hisPoetics (6th century BC), comedy consists of a representation of men worse than they really are, which allows viewers to make fun of them, even as powerful figures in real life.

The ancient Greeks cultivated it as one of the two highest forms of drama, associating it with the bucolic and pastoral muse named Thalía, who together with Melpómene (muse of tragedy) were the inspirers of the theater. Since then, these two arts have been represented by two masks: one smiling and the other tearful, associating them with two perspectives around the life: the optimist and the pessimist.

Comedy, unlike tragedy, is not concerned with exalting or solemnly addressing its charactersInstead, he chooses them from the common people and subjects them not to a fatal fate, but to the rigors of chance. Hence, in many types of comedy (such as tangled comedy), characters get out of difficult or embarrassing situations by sheer chance.

However, this absence of a destiny traced by the gods in comedy also carries an important notion of Liberty human, since each one can in his works pursue his own future at will, which opens the way for nonsense, coincidence, surprise, changes of rhythm and other frequent resources in the narrative structure of the genre.

Origin of comedy

Charles Chaplin is a legendary character in comic cinema.

Comedy, like tragedy, has its origin as a genre in Ancient Greece (1200 - 146 BC), as an artistic evolution of the primitive songs of honor to Dionysus, derived from the dithyramb, a Greek composition associated with satire and mime . The splendor of Greek comedy took place with Aristophanes (444-385 BC), whose heritage was passed down to Roman culture by the Greek playwright Menander in the fourth century.

From there it would pass to medieval European culture, where it would form an important part of popular traditions, not at all similar to the religious and censored art of the time, being rather grotesque and very in contact with the body. There, later comic artistic phenomena such as theCommedia dell’Arte or the Spanish Golden Age theater (Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca, mainly).

The comedy would later be an important genre of the contemporary artistic imaginary, especially in the nineteenth-century theater and at the beginning of the movie theater, with legendary characters such as Charles Chaplin's Charlot or Mario Moreno's Cantinflas.

Types of comedy

In musical comedy the characters sing and dance in addition to acting.

There are various classifications of comedy, depending on the type of plot and characters it shows. Some examples are:

• Old comedy. It is thus known to the work of the great comedians of antiquity, such as Aristophanes, Cratés or Cratinos, inventors of the genre.
• Comedy of entanglements. Also called "situation", it consists of the random and absurd mixture of two or more stories that converge unintentionally and give rise to misunderstandings.
• Physical comedy. English callslapstick, is the comedy with an important physical or acting component, that is, in which the actors suffer physical accidents: falls, blows, etc.
• Pastoral or pastoral comedy. Dedicated to the bucolic life in the field, with loves between shepherds or peasants.
• Satirical comedy. The one who ridicules certain institutions or individuals, highlighting their flaws and making fun of the powerful.
• Magic comedy. Also known as an apparatus comedy, it has the presence of all kinds of magical beings and animals that require special situations and effects (tramoya).
• Musical comedy. Where the characters not only act, but sing and dance.

Examples of comedy

Some of the most recognized comedies are:

• Lysistrata, CloudsYThe Frogsof Aristophanes.
• The imaginary patient of Molière.
• Pot of Plautus.
• The condemned as distrustful YThe Trickster of Seville by Tirso de Molina.
• The importance of being called Ernesto by Oscar Wilde.
• The great Dictator by Charles Chaplin.
• The little father, The sweeper, There is the detail by Mario Moreno "Cantinflas".