At a Glance
comedy: References & Edit History
More Articles On This Topic
- Western theatreFrench Neoclassicism
- Western theatreThe early 19th century
- burlesque show
- stagecraftClassical theatrical costume
- English literatureDrama by Dryden and others
- French literatureSecular drama
- Tractatus Coislinianus
- Greek literatureArchaic period, to the end of the 6th century bc
- Greek literatureComedy
- Western theatreDramatic genres
- puppetryStyles of puppet theatre
- Latin literatureComedy
Additional Reading
C.L. Barber, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (1959), Shakespearean comedy considered in relation to archetypal patterns of folk ritual and games; Lane Cooper, An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy, with an Adaptation of the Poetics and a Translation of the Tractatus Coislinianus (1922), the only modern text of the Tractatus, with an introductory essay relating it to Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, and a conjectural reconstruction of the lost treatise on comedy based on the example of the Poetics; F.M. Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy (1914; ed. by T.H. Gaster, 1961), an account of the development of Greek comedy from primitive fertility rites, and of the survival of traces of these ceremonials in the extant plays of Aristophanes; Cyrus Hoy, The Hyacinth Room: An Investigation into the Nature of Comedy, Tragedy, and Tragicomedy (1964), an examination of the plays of Euripides, Shakespeare, Jonson, Molière, Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello, Beckett, and Ionesco; J.W. Krutch, Comedy and Conscience After the Restoration (1924, reprinted with a new preface and additional bibliographic material, 1949), a study of the decline of Restoration comedy and the rise of sentimental comedy at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century; K.M. Lynch, The Social Mode of Restoration Comedy (1926), the best available account of the relation of the plays of Dryden, Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, and their contemporaries to their social milieu; A.W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy (1927; 2nd ed. rev. by T.B.L. Webster, 1962), and The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (1953; 2nd ed. rev. by J. Gould and D.M. Lewis, 1968), the definitive accounts of the origins of Greek comedy and tragedy; and F.H. Ristine, English Tragicomedy: Its Origin and History (1910), the only full-scale account of the subject through the 17th century.
Article Contributors
Primary Contributors
- Cyrus Henry Hoy
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Article History
| Type | Description | Contributor | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add new Web site: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Comedy. | Oct 30, 2026 | ||
| Add new Web site: The Canadian Encyclopedia - Comedy. | Jun 01, 2026 | ||
| Add new Web site: Georgia College and State University - Rhetoric in Comedy: How Comedians Use Persuasion and How Society Uses Comedians (PDF). | Jan 17, 2026 | ||
| Add new Web site: Emory University - Center for Ethics - What Is Comedy For? (PDF). | Oct 10, 2025 | ||
| Media added. | Aug 19, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: NPR - When does comedy cross the line? | Jul 15, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: University of Mosul - Comedy and its main types (PDF). | Jun 07, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: CiteseerX - Comedy As A Way Of Correcting The Ills Of Society A Critical Reading Of Wole Soyinkas The Trials Of Brother Jero And Harold Pinters The Caretaker (PDF). | Feb 15, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: University of Vermont - Comedy. | Aug 12, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: Open University - The Birth of Comedy. | May 19, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: Dallas Baptist University - A Vocabulary for Comedy. | Jan 02, 2024 | ||
| Link added. | Oct 28, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Academia - Comedy as Performance. | Aug 08, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Humanities LibreTexts - The Production of Comedy: The Joke in the Age of Social Media. | May 02, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Humanities LibreTexts - The Production of Comedy: The Joke in the Age of Social Media. | Nov 25, 2022 | ||
| Corrected display issue. | Aug 02, 2022 | ||
| Add new Web site: Literary Devices - Comedy. | Nov 23, 2021 | ||
| Add new Web site: Buzzle.com - Comedy. | Apr 11, 2014 | ||
| Article revised and updated. | Aug 12, 2010 | ||
| Added new Web site: The Canadian Encyclopedia - Comedy. | Oct 16, 2008 | ||
| Article revised. | Jun 29, 2000 | ||
| Article added to new online database. | Jul 28, 1999 |
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