Transcript COMEDY

COMEDY
Caesar and Cleopatra
By Bernard Shaw
COMEDY

Focuses on people’s social
behaviour.
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Exposes and unmasks human
weaknesses and vices.
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Explores the discrepancy
between the seeming and the
real.
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Starts with a problem, ends with
its resolution.
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Depends on a complicated plot
(obstacles, confused identities,
misunderstandings).
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Instructive by nature and
purpose. Comic relief instead of
catharsis
History of Comedy
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Originated in Greece, 4th cent.
BC.
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First comedies (“Old Comedy”)
were bawdy social satires.
Aristophanes, “the father of
comedy.”
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Later, “New Comedy” formed
the love-meets-obstacles model.
Main Genres of Comedy

Farce (ex., commedia del arte)
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Romantic comedy
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Comedy of humours
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Comedy of manners
These types can be mixed together
within one dramatic work.
Types of Comedy

“Low comedy” appeals to baser
sense of humour (farce, slapstick
comedy).

“High comedy” appeals to
intellect (romantic comedy;
comedy of humours; comedy of
manners).
Brief History
of English Comedy
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Farcical elements in medieval
mystery and morality plays (The
Second Shepherds’ Play);
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Renaissance comedy
(Shakespeare, Ben Jonson);
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Restoration comedy of manners
(William Congreve, Aphra
Behn).
Brief History
of English Comedy

18th cent. sentimental comedy
(Richard Steel) and comedy of
manners/humours (Oliver
Goldsmith);

19th cent. comedy of manners
(Oscar Wilde);
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20th cent. black/dark/absurd
comedy (Samuel Beckett,
Harold Pinter).
Elements of Comedy
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Slapstick humour
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Situational humour; qui pro quo.
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Satire.
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Verbal humour.
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)
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Irish playwright, writer, critic,
journalist, social activist.

The only person to have received
both the Nobel prize and an
Oscar.
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Famous for “Shavian”
witticisms.
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Co-founded the London School
of Economics.
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Tried to promote a reform of
English spelling.
What do we know
about Cleopatra and Caesar?
Caesar and Cleopatra
by G.B.Shaw(1898)
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The prologues
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Language
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Role of stage directions
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Themes
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Characters
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Anachronisms
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Intertextual references
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Humour