Tragic-Comedy - Literary Terms
Tragic-Comedy - Literary Terms
Tragic-comedy is a kind of play in which tragic and comic scenes are mingled. It violates the classical rules of writing pure tragedy or pure comedy on the logic that human life is neither absolutely sad nor absolutely happy. According to the classical theory of drama grand themes and upper class characters are appropriate to tragedy; and low subjects and low people are fit for comedy. A typical tragedy needs a grave development of the plot which usually results in death Write opposite to it, a typical comedy needs a light development of the plot which ends in happiness. But there are plays in which low and high characters act together, light and grave events happen in the same plot, or death and marriage take place almost simultaneously. Such a play is called tragic-comedy.
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is tragic-comedy because it mingles people of the aristocracy with lower class characters (such as the Jewish merchant Shylock and the clown Launce lot Gobo) and also because the developing threat of death to Antonio is suddenly reversed at the end by Portia's ingenious casuistry in the trial scene.
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