Some Distinctions Between Classical Tragedy and Comedy

Some Distinctions Between Classical Tragedy and Comedy

TRAGEDY:

Purpose and Effect

1) Emphasizes human suffering

2) Ends with rigid finality

3) Moves with solemnity and foreboding

4) Emotional Response (pity and fear)

5) Identification with the hero

6) Laments man's fate

7) Criticizes hubris , self-delusion, and complacency

8) Offers some hope (man c a n learn), but stresses

     limitations of the human condition

COMEDY:

1) Emphasizes renewal of human nature

2) Moves from rigidity to freedom

3) Plays with prevailing high spirits

4) Intellectual response (ridicule and absurdity)

5) Scorn/approval of protagonist/others

6) Celebrates life

7) Criticizes folly, self-delusion, and complacency

8) Suggests cynicism (man a fool), but offers hope of

    renewal.

Tragic Hero versus

1) Hero recognizes great mistake, but too late to change

     it

2) Hero demonstrates a personal flaw or error in

    perception

3) Hero frequently hubristic

4) Hero isolated from community in individuality

5) Hero exercises free will

6) Hero suffers terrible downfall

7) Hero fails through error

8) Hero aspires to more than he can achieve

9) Hero is larger than life, considerably above the

    audience in status or responsibility

Comic Protagonist

1) "Hero" awakens to better nature after folly exposed.

2) "Hero" undergoes improbable improvement.

3) "Hero" frequently intolerant or prudish

4) "Hero" finds selfhood by joining flow of society and

    community, rejecting individuality

5) "Hero" is a comic mechanism

6) "Hero" loses a nd recover s his equilibrium

7) "Hero" triumphs by luck, wit, acceptance

8) "Hero" pretends to be more than he is

9) "Hero" is just like everyone else, or might even

     be an anti-hero or buffoon.

Tragic Struggle versus

1) Serious and painful struggle

2) Life and societal norms at odds

3) Struggle against unchangeable

4) Struggle dominated by Fate or necessity

5) Discovery of true nature leads to hero's isolation

6) Struggle against predictable and inevitable

7) Struggle between man and destiny, or between

    man and social forces beyond man's control

Comic Struggle

1) Less serious and painful struggle

2) Norms valid and necessary

3) Struggle against movable

4) Struggle dominated by Fortune (chance)

5) Discovery of true nature leads to hero's conformity

    with group norms.

6) Struggle against coincidence (unpredictable)

7) Struggle between individual and group or between

    groups (e.g., men and women)

Tragic Methods versus

1) Tragedy depends on validity of universal norms

2) Cohering episodes clarify action

3) Causality dominates pattern of (a) deed, which leads

    to (b) suffering, which leads to (c) recognition or

    understanding

4) Plot moves from freedom of choice to inflexible

    Consequence

Comic Methods

1) Comedy exploits conflicting values

2) Plot more intricate, less plausible

3) Coincidence dominates a patternless grappling with

    the unpredictable and the absurd. Plot forwarded by

    chance discoveries and accidental encounters.

4) Plot moves from rigidity at the beginning to greater

    freedom for characters at end.