I Comedy: Definitions, Theories, History

Abstract

Comedy’, from Greek komoidia, is a word with a complex cultural history. Its modern, as opposed to its ancient, use covers all formally marked varieties of performed humour, whether scripted or improvised, group or solo, in any medium: theatre, film, television, radio, stand-up, and various hybrids and mutations of these. It is also, by extension, applied more loosely to novels and other non-performance texts that share recognizable features of plot, theme, or tone with the classical tradition of comic drama; and used more loosely still as a casual synonym for humour’. As a countable noun, however, the word is restricted to works with a narrative line; thus sketch shows, stand-up, and variety acts can be comedy’ but not comedies’.