Various ideas have been associated with the term tragedy and the term comedy over the centuries, including tragedy that is not tragic, in the sense of "sad" or "disastrous," and comedy that is not comic, in the modern prevalent meaning of "amusing." The modern English meaning of comedy as a synonym for humor is largely a twentieth-century development.
By Seneca's time, plays may have largely or entirely ceased to be performed by actors and, at most, been presented only by public recitations. The term tragedy was also used for pantomime productions, tragoediae saltatae, and also for citharoediae, in which a tragic protagonist sang and accompanied himself on the lyre. In book 18 of his encyclopedia, Isidore takes up tragedy and comedy agai…
Dante's own definitions of comedy and tragedy in De vulgari eloquentia are not connected to ideas of misery or felicity. He agrees with Mussato in considering tragedy to use elevated subjects. It also uses the best syntax, verse forms, and diction. Comedy on the other hand is a style inferior to that of tragedy, using both middling and humble forms. He cites lyric poems, including some of h…
Shakespeare (1564–1616) himself does not say what he means by comedy and tragedy, but one can deduce from his characters that comedy has the general meaning of a pleasant or mirthful play, and that tragedy more often refers to an event than to a play, and more often concerns the downfall of an innocent than a guilty person. This is in contrast to formal discussions—like Sir Philip Si…
There have been dozens of attempts to define tragedy, understood as supreme tragedy, radical tragedy, pure tragedy, and the like. Most of these understandings are intuitive and personal to the definers and are based on a favorite example of tragedy (or a small cluster of favorite tragedies). To give a recent example, George Steiner defines tragedy as "the dramatic testing of a view of reali…
Aristotle. Poetics. Edited and translated by Stephen Halliwell. Loeb Classical Library 199. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. Bayley, John. Shakespeare and Tragedy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981 Boethius. The Theological Tractates. Edited and translated by S. J. Tester. Loeb Classical Library 74. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. Bradley, A. C. Shakespearea…
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