Comedy & Tragedy

Carnival & the Absurd

Comedy that which makes us laugh and has a happy ending

Tragedy what makes us sad and has an unhappy ending

Carnival kind of riotous festival

Absurd what perplexes and confounds us

Comedy, from Greek, komos-oidos meaning revel-song

Aristotle says: happy endings, progression from disorder to order, chaos to harmonycharacters of inferior moral quality, usually of lower social status (slaves,

artisans, traders, etc.)a spectacle of what is ridiculous, but laughable causes no painthere are also sub-genrescomedy of humours, based on exaggeration of supposed psychological types:

sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric (hence 'humorous'=funny)comedy of manners, based on affectations in social appearance and behaviourromantic comedy, involving fantastic adventures and often a love interestpastoral comedy, invoking idyllic or idiotic images of country living, especially

amongst romantically prettified or grotesquely uglified shepherdssatiric comedy, exposing and censuring faults, usually involving sex and

acquisitiveness, often set in a corrupt city or householdblack comedy, a dark kind of satire, often with an uncertain sense of morality

and a sharp sense of absurdity and perhaps with a carnivalesque feel

Tragedy, from Greed tragos-oidos (goat-song)

unhappy endings and a progression from order to disorder, harmony to chaoscharacters of superior morals, usually of a high social status: kings, nobles, etc.a spectacle which 'arouses pity and fear' but which not being real but a representation, 'purges' these emotions harmlessly (called catharsis)a plot built around a 'downturn' (cata-strophe) and eventual recognition of a true, appalling state of affairsa hero or heroine (a protagonist) who is basically noble but eventually undone by some tragic flaw (hamartia), often in the form of excessive pride (hubris) as well as some implacable force such as destiny or fate, usually represented by the godsa figure who stands out against the protagonist (the antagonist) as well as a chorus which comments morally, often prophetically, upon the unfolding action'the representation of an action that is complete and whole'

Graham Harman, Wierd Realism

“Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in real life.” Aristotle

Ultimately, the only thing that can be meant here by “better” and “worse” people is whether they are better or worse in terms of the things they invest their entergy in taking seriously. The tragic figure is involved with objects and incidents that command our respect and interest, while the comic figure has invested attention in things we regard as ridiculous, from red rubber clown noses to social pomposity to absurd addictions and compulsions.

“Socrates was trying to prove to them that authors should be able to write both comedy and tragedy: the skillful tragic dramatist should also be a comic poet.” – Plato, Symposium

More interesting than these examples, however, would be a deliberate and controlled combination of the comic and the tragic simultaneously. - Harman

The Absurd

Theatre of the Absurd, 1962 book by Martin Esslin The absurd group of mid-twentieth c. playwrights, Ionesco, Beckett, Pinter, Albee

silence as much as speech

absence as much as presence

incoherence rather more than coherence

explore il/logic, non/character plots, indeterminate setting

no clear beginning, middle, end

Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd

“Absurd” originally means “out of harmony,” in a musical context. Hence its dictionary definition: “out of harmony with reason or propriety; ingongruous, unreasonable, illogical.” In common usage, “absurd” may simply mean “ridiculous,” but this is not the sense in which Camus uses the word, and in which it is used when we speak of the Theatre of the Absurd. In an essay on Kafka, Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as follows: “Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose....Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.”

Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd

This sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human condition is the theme of the plays of Beckett, Adamov, Ionesco, Genet, and many other writers.

 

The Theatre of the Absurd tries to achieve a unity between its basic assumptions and the form in which these are expressed (performativity).

CarnivalCarnival more socially and politically engaged, less philosophically

detaches kinds of nonsenseItalian carne-vale, farewell to flesh

Revel before LentMikhail Bakhtin's def: Carnival celebrates the temporary liberation from prevailing truth and from the established order: it marks the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms and prohibitions.seen as popular culture opposed or alternative to the officialcelebration of body over what constrains itpoliticalhow much are they contained by, or exceed and break open, the frames within which they operate.

Bahktin on Carnival"Carnival festivities and the comic spectacles and ritual connected with them had an

important place in the life of medieval man. Besides carnivals proper, with their long

and complex pageants and processions, there was the 'feast of fools' (festa stultorum)

and the 'feast of the ass'; there was a special free 'Easter laughter' (risus paschalis),

consecrated by tradition. Moreover, nearly every Church feast had its comic folk

aspect, which was also traditionally recognized. Such, for instance, were the parish

feasts, usually marked by fairs and varied open-air amusements, with the participation

of giants, dwarfs, monsters, and trained animals. A carnival atmosphere reigned on

days when mysteries and soties were produced. This atmosphere also pervaded such

agricultural feasts as the harvesting of grapes (vendange) which was celebrated also in

the city. Civil and social ceremonies and rituals took on a comic aspect as clowns and

fools, constant participants in these festivals, mimicked serious rituals such as the

tribute rendered to the victors at tournaments, the transfer of feudal rights, or the

initiation of a knight. Minor occasions were also marked by comic protocol, as for

instance the election of a king and queen to preside at a banquet 'for laughter's sake'

(roi pour rire)"

These occasions "built a second world and a second life outside officialdom, a world

in which all medieval people participated more or less, in which they lived during a given time of the year. If we fail to take into consideration this two-world condition,

neither medieval cultural consciousness nor the culture of the Renaissance can be

understood. To ignore or underestimate the laughing people of the Middle Ages also

distorts the picture of European culture's historic development"