Related Words

Slapstick Comedy: Low comedy in which humor depends almost entirely on physical actions and sight gags. The antics of the three stooges and the modern fourth stooge, Adam Sandler, often fall into this category.

Old Comedy: The Athenian comedies dating to 400-499 BCE, featuring invective, satire, ribald humor, and song and dance. See further discussion under stock character.

New Comedy: The Greek comedy the developed circa 300 BCE, stressing romantic entanglements, wit, and unexpected twists of plot.

Romantic Comedy: Sympathetic comedy that presents the adventures of young lovers trying to overcome social, psychological, or interpersonal constraints to achieve a successful union. Commedia dell'arte is a . . . View Full Definition

Satiric Comedy: Any drama or comic poem involving humor as a means of satire.

Tragicomedy: A experimental literary work--either a play or prose piece of fiction--containing elements common to both comedies and tragedies. The genre is marked by characters of both high and low degre . . . View Full Definition

Middle Comedy: Greek comedies written in the early 300s BCE, in which the exaggerated costumes and the chorus of the Old Comedy were eliminated. We have no surviving examples of these Middle Comedies, but . . . View Full Definition

Low Comedy: In contrast with high comedy, low comedy consists of silly, slapstick physicality, crude pratfalls, violence, scatology, and bodily humor rather than clever dialogue or banter. See comedy.

Comedy Of Innocence: (1) In anthropological terms, a comedy of innocence is a ritualized symbolic behavior (or set of such behaviors) designed to alleviate individual or communal guilt about an execution or sacr . . . View Full Definition

Comedy Of Humors: A Renaissance drama in which numerous characters appear as the embodiment of stereotypical 'types' of people, each character having the physiological and behavioral traits associated with a . . . View Full Definition