Warm Up, April 21st

• Name the three funniest works of art (can be books, plays, television shows, movies, stand up routines, etc.).

• For each, explain as well as you can exactly what it is that makes them funny.

As Shakespeare will remind us,• Comedy is NOT always funny, haha!

• All that is required for the category of comedy is a story with a happy ending.

• It is defined as a story involving the rise in fortune of a sympathetic central character.

The Comic Pattern• Begins with a comic problem (thwarted love, eccentric

behavior, or corruption, for example). Moving from exposition to complication, the problem gets worse. Complication is fueled by misunderstanding, mistakes in identity, errors in judgment, etc.

• Comic climax: confusion reaches its peak, misunderstanding is dominant, pressure is at a high point, choices must be made and solution found. Often involves revelation.

• Comic Denouement: Resolves the initial problems and allows for resolution. Lives are straightened out, people reconcile, marriages occur, order is restored.

Characters of Comedy:• The Comic Hero – • Doesn’t have to be a spotless character.• S/he must display enough charm to win the audience’s approval.

Characters of Comedy (con’t):

• Ordinary People• Tend to be plain, everyday figures (lower or middle class) instead of kings, queens, or heads of state (as in a tragedy).• Ordinary people’s problems.• Not necessarily humorous; it is about the satisfaction we feel

when deserving people succeed.

Characters of Comedy (con’t):

• The Buffoon • A low, jesting parasite• An ironical man, or a type

of dissembled ignorance• The boastful man, imposter,

or braggart.• Representative of differing

social classes, but all are one moral type.

The Comedic Ladder

High Comedy Comedy of Ideas/Satire

Inconsistences of character Verbal Wit

Plot Devices/FarcePhysical mishaps

Obscenity

Low Comedy• At the bottom of the comedy ladder, man is almost

indistinguishable from the animal. The laughter is longest and loudest over a dirty joke or gesture. At this depth comedy unerringly finds the lowest common denominator. Typically, this the rung for “bathroom humor,” where body functions remind us that we are certainly “a little less than angels.” Physical mishaps, pratfalls, slapstick, and loud collisions are the obvious elements and here too are the deformed: long noses, humped backs, dwarves.

Farce• This comedy most readily identified by the devices which drive the plot: mistaken identities, coincidences, and mistimings. The characters become the puppets of fate. Typically the plot is predictably improbable: devices include twins separated at birth, unhappy marriages by tyrannical parents, allegiances complicated by money and births, and a ragshop of happy endings.

Verbal WitSome quotes from Earnest:• “I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have

met, they will be calling each other sister.”“Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.”

• “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

• “Oh! I don't think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.”

• “Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.”

• “Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.”

Comedy of Manners• Referred to as the amorous intrigues of the aristocratic

classes, this comedy emphasizes the mechanism of language, and reduces drama and life to a sheen of verbal wit. Such comedy does not hesitate to sacrifice humanity to dialogue: puns, paradoxes, epigrams, and witticisms of all types are the tools it uses often in the service of satire.

Satirical Comedy• Satire is any form of art that ridicules human vice or folly in

order to bring about social reform.• Some satire is comedic (gentle, urbane, smiling), while some

is not (biting, bitter, angry).• Characters include con-artists, criminals, tricksters, and

fortune seekers with gullible dupes, knaves, and cuckolds who serve as their victims.

• Resembles other types of comedy, but the central character is less likely to be foolish and morally corrupt.

Comedy of Ideas• The characters argue ideas or are

representative of people who hold these ideas. The dramatic action is an embodiment of these ideas in conflict; not an allegory, this genre uses characters, who essentially remain personalities, capable of change, pitting their wits (or lack of them) against those who view reality differently.

Intro Clip• https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBCIwj6cqko&noredirect=1

Questions about Clip• What does the background music convey about the tone of

the play? • Based on the costumes and character accents, where and

when do you think the play occurs? • Why is a man playing the character of Lady Bracknell? • What does it mean to “send up” something? • Do you agree with the statement one of the actors makes

about “wit never ages---what was funny 105 years ago is funny now”?

• Do you think the clips from the play are funny? Why or why not?

• How do you think the actors prepared for their roles?

Based on everything you know,• What predictions can you make about the play that we are

going to start reading tomorrow?