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    Shakespearean Comedy

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    KOUSIK BISWAS
    Shakespearean comedy has its own conventions that developed beyond crude comic situations from earlier mystery plays. While Shakespeare was influenced by Roman playwrights Terence and Plautus, he fused those elements into his own harmonious dramatic schemes. His comedies often feature underplots that run parallel to the main plot but are integral parts that provide variety and prevent monotony. For example, in The Merchant of Venice there are three different love affairs occurring on different levels that indirectly enhance the main romantic plot of Bassanio and Portia. Shakespeare's comedies are romantic but expand beyond merely depicting wooing to an imaginative escape from drudgery through artificial settings.

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    Shakespearean Comedy

    Uploaded by

    KOUSIK BISWAS
    1K views1 page
    Shakespearean comedy has its own conventions that developed beyond crude comic situations from earlier mystery plays. While Shakespeare was influenced by Roman playwrights Terence and Plautus, he fused those elements into his own harmonious dramatic schemes. His comedies often feature underplots that run parallel to the main plot but are integral parts that provide variety and prevent monotony. For example, in The Merchant of Venice there are three different love affairs occurring on different levels that indirectly enhance the main romantic plot of Bassanio and Portia. Shakespeare's comedies are romantic but expand beyond merely depicting wooing to an imaginative escape from drudgery through artificial settings.

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    Shakespearean Comedy

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    Shakespearean comedy has its own conventions that developed beyond crude comic situations from earlier mystery plays. While Shakespeare was influenced by Roman playwrights Terence and Plautus, he fused those elements into his own harmonious dramatic schemes. His comedies often feature underplots that run parallel to the main plot but are integral parts that provide variety and prevent monotony. For example, in The Merchant of Venice there are three different love affairs occurring on different levels that indirectly enhance the main romantic plot of Bassanio and Portia. Shakespeare's comedies are romantic but expand beyond merely depicting wooing to an imaginative escape from drudgery through artificial settings.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    1K views1 page

    Shakespearean Comedy

    Uploaded by

    KOUSIK BISWAS
    Shakespearean comedy has its own conventions that developed beyond crude comic situations from earlier mystery plays. While Shakespeare was influenced by Roman playwrights Terence and Plautus, he fused those elements into his own harmonious dramatic schemes. His comedies often feature underplots that run parallel to the main plot but are integral parts that provide variety and prevent monotony. For example, in The Merchant of Venice there are three different love affairs occurring on different levels that indirectly enhance the main romantic plot of Bassanio and Portia. Shakespeare's comedies are romantic but expand beyond merely depicting wooing to an imaginative escape from drudgery through artificial settings.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 1

    SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY

    The origin of Shakespearean comedy may be traced to the crude comic


    situations of the mystery plays, but those situations contributed hardly anything towards
    the shaping and gradual development of Shakespearean comedy , which had its own laws
    and conventions. Undoubtedly Shakespeare was indebted to TERENCE and PLAUTUS, but
    there again he fused his own the elements borrowed from them into a harmonious
    dramatic scheme.

    The reasonable feature of Shakespearean comedy is its underplots. In his


    comedies Shakespeare had one or more underplots running parallel to the main plot, yet
    forming integral part of it. These meanderings of underplots gave the main plot variety
    and made it very enjoyable, so that there could be no room for monotony in
    Shakespearean comedy.

    For example, in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, there are three love affairs. But
    they are on different planes. The sentimental love affair of Lorenzo and Jessica, and rather
    homely love affair between Gratiano and Nerissa have nothing common with the romantic
    love affair of Bassanio and Portia, yet the first two love affairs indirectly add grace to the
    third one and keep it free from such satisty as which is the chief defect of most romances.

    Shakespeare’s comedies are romantic comedies, for their chief motive is


    romantic love. But here again Shakespeare had his distinction. Upto his time, romantic
    comedies were confined to wooing, but he strode out of the confines.

    The chief characteristic of romance is its escape, rather emancipation, from


    the bonds of drudgery and monotony that the real life binds us with. And Shakespeare
    knew that well. So he elevated his comedies from the real to imaginative plane. His
    comedies mostly begin with some artificial seclusion segregation , and, as Professor
    Gordon says, “the curtain goes up, and at once, or in a scene or two, the door is shut on
    ordinary life”.

    Shakespeare borrowed liberally from foreign sources. He ransacked the


    Italian comedy. But he remoulded the plunder with the touch of his own genius. And so,
    his fools are no more fools – they are full characters indeed, for he made them do some
    job, in addition to buffoonery. Thus LAUNCELOT GOBBO in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
    acted as a messenger between LORENZO and JESSICA and thereby became a useful
    character. Shakespeare also borrowed the element of intrigue from the Italian comedy.

    Unlike BEN JOHNSON, Shakespeare did not write his comedy in a satirical
    vein. On the contrary, it was humour – innocent and healthy humour – what he aimed at.
    And his humour was spontaneous. As the action moves on, humour makes its appearance,
    as if by an accident, and yet spontaneously filling the auditorium with a tremendous roar
    hearty laughter.

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