Chapter 2 - Comedy's foundations

Summary

Back to (what we call) the beginning

I have called attention to the fact that there are things we come to ‘know without knowing’ about comedy. This happens by virtue of a complex cultural framing system, which we internalize as we grow up and constantly amend throughout a lifetime. In fact, what allows us to understand and appreciate comic texts from other times and other places is owed at least in part to the fact that some patterns can still be seen to betray their roots in past practices. Basic mechanisms of comedy in Western civilization can be traced to theatre practice in Ancient Greece and Rome, and to the prototypical routines and characters of the commedia dell'arte, a semi-improvisational, public performance practice which arose in sixteenth-century Italy (and which will be discussed further in Chapter 4).

In this chapter, I will note some of these familiar comic patterns, hopefully inspiring the curious reader to make similar identifications in contemporary texts. I will also regard some of the historical and theatrical conditions surrounding these early comic footprints as a way of reinforcing the equal and opposite pull of comedy between the universal and the localized ‘here and now’ of any performance or reading.

Take a moment to refer back to the scene from Aristophanes' Lysistrata, sampled in the Introduction. Having gathered women from both sides of the Peloponnesian War for the purpose of unveiling her peace plan, Lysistrata has thus far stopped short of describing its precise nature.