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Traditional classifications of drama normally started with the basic distinction between tragedy and comedy, a separation common in Greek and Roman drama, and clearly established by Shakespeare's time. Of these two styles, the easiest to define initially was the former. Tragedy was understood as the dramatic portrayal of a great mans suffering and (almost invariably) his death. The hero might be a great villain or famous for virtue (a historical or Biblical character, for example), but the main purpose of the play was to focus on his career, especially the final chapter: the events leading up to his death, his death, and moral reflections upon the story (tragedy lent itself often to fairly orthodox Christian themes: punishments for arrogance, pride, overreaching, and so on). By common traditions, then, tragedies were serious, involving some ultimate questions about the moral framework of a human life in the face of our common fate, death. Hence, tragedies demanded a formal style in the language (e.
g. , blank verse), subject matter, and acting: tragedies were, by definition serious and formal high art, if you will. In addition, the central character had to be, to some extent, larger than life suitable focus for our attention on major questions of human existence. Tragic heroes were thus almost invariably people of special social prominence: kings, generals, extraordinarily successful achievers (or over-achievers). About comedy, however, there was no such general agreement, and in Shakespeare's time there was a fierce competition between rival companies seeking to win over audiences with different brands of comedy. As we shall see, such a competition is still alive in our culture.
By way of illustrating this competition, let me list a few of the rival possibilities. One of the oldest styles of comedy, developed by the Greeks and a staple ingredient of Roman drama, was the so-called New Comedy, or comedy of manners. Here the dramatic focus is squarely on the middle-class urban family, its trials and tribulations, and, in the conclusion, a happy resolution of its problems. This is the sort of drama we are very used to seeing on television in programs like Hum Log, Buniyaad, Those Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai, and so on, the staple fare of sit-coms [like Kaun Bang Crorepati, The Oprah Vinfrey Show]. New Comedy, in other words, presents to its overwhelmingly middle-class audience a image of itself, focusing on their major concerns, especially money, property, quarrels between parents and children, neighbours, husbands and wives and servants, and so on. It relies heavily on certain stock characters invented by the Greeks and Romans which have not changed all that much the conniving adulterous husband, the clever servant, the nagging wife, the expensive mistress, the horny son, the boastful soldier, and so on.
In many cases, such New Comedy lends itself easily to satire, and so it becomes a favorite vehicle for dramatists, who wish to present in their work some lesson for the audience to learn about appropriate conduct (New Comedy is thus a favourite vehicle for those who believe that art should -- or must -- have a social moral purpose. ) Since New Comedy is also a common classical form (especially in Latin literature), this form is particularly attractive for any writer who wants to lean on classical models or display his command of classical literature. New Comedy relies heavily on naturalism that is, offering a world and characters recognizably similar to the world of the audience, what we would call slice-of-life (again, modern television sit-coms illustrate this quality well). It is predominantly urban in setting, taking place in the street, the market, or in some public space (like a hotel) where the characters can plausibly meet, interact, engage in conflicts, and so on. The source of the conflicts and their resolution rely heavily on things common to the middle-class life of the audience, which may be unexpected but which fit the description of reality defined by the middle-class setting. Hence, there are few violations of the naturalistic basis for the style (no magic, no divine interventions, and so on). There may be many coincidences, but the action never moves to the entirely implausible.
In fact, the heart of New Comedy is a tightly constructed and interesting plot. Since the characters are more or less familiar types who dont change very much and since the style is naturalistic, without weird special effects, the major interest in the drama is the way in which the conflict gets increasingly complicated and then resolves itself quickly in a suitably convincing way. The logic of the action must be interesting and plausible within the principles established by the style. At the other extreme of the spectrum of comic styles is the more anarchic world of Popular Comedy (I use this term for want of a clear label for such a style), a much more free-wheeling affair, closer to a childrens pantomime or fairy story than to a naturalistic middle-class life.
In many cases, the action is loosely scripted, so as to permit a great deal of improvisation, especially by the clowns, audience interaction, local references, singing, dancing, joke-telling, clowning around of all varieties, and so on. Popular Comedy of this sort respects no particular dramatic rules, and it tends to be much more colloquial, physical, spontaneous, and vulgar than New Comedy. Hence, it often prompts stern criticism from those who believe middle-class drama should observe certain rules about a proper style and subject matter and carry a useful moral lesson. For instance, an excellent modern example of this Popular Comedy and the most popular form of live drama in our culture professional wrestling. It has a stage, all sorts of props (like chairs, tables), outlandish costumes, continuing audience interaction, and a great deal of on-the-spot improvising as the main actors carry out a loosely scripted performance. It also has no pretensions to any socially redeeming message or any concern for polite taste: its purpose is to give the people a lot of physical entertainment for their money.
It also features a great deal of audience participation (as does another very popular form of this style, (as the Close-Up Antakshri). Such physical vigour, variety, and spontaneous action are much more important than the plot which (like a wrestling match) may be entirely predictable and thin). Of course, such Popular Comedy attracts the stern criticism of those who believe that entertainment should pay attention, first and foremost, to public standards of decency and moral purposiveness (or at least naturalistic plausibility). So the sorts of arguments we see about wrestling and Shekhar Suman on television are not unlike the sorts of arguments going on in Shakespeare's time about an appropriate style for public dramatic performances (its all fake, its too repetitive, crude, predictable, and so on). In between these two is a style of comedy called pastoral drama. Like New Comedy, pastoral drama tends to avoid the excesses of what I have been calling Popular Comedy and it often has a clear moral purpose.
But, unlike New Comedy, it makes no attempt to be strictly naturalistic. Pastoral drama, like pastoral literature generally, usually features an idealized vision of country life, with shepherds and shepherdesses happily united in nature talking all the time about love. But (and this is key to the pastoral convention) the life is typically seen from a city-goers perspective, a point of view which enables the writer to use the country experience as a means of critiquing urban values in a manner more sophisticated than a point of view defined entirely by the country experience would permit. Pastoral literature, in other words, features an interaction between an urban sophistication and a simplified vision of life away from the city. Pastoral drama typically features love as its major concerns romance between country folk, or the love of an urban man for some country lass, or a romance between two urban people who, for some reason or another (frequently implausible), find themselves temporarily in the country, having to deal with country life (i. e. , from an unfamiliar perspective).
Because pastoral drama takes place away from the city or the palace, it permits the characters to explore life in a totally non-political way, in a setting where their social roles can be momentarily set aside and they can, to some extent, experiment with possibilities not available in the much more restricted world of the city, where they are known, have social and political responsibilities, have to observe much stricter codes of behaviour (e. g. , in clothes), and (this is often quite important in the Pastoral style) have to answer to the demands of the clock (i. e. , organize their daily schedule more rigorously than in the country). Also, the pastoral setting often encourages a much less naturalistic style, one in which woodland sprites, fairies, amazing coincidences, enchantment, and so on come with the territory. So pastoral drama, like popular comedy, can routinely violate naturalistic principles in a way which would not be acceptable in the more naturalistic world of New Comedy. Since the action is taking place outside the city, the normal rules of the city do not apply.
Thus, anything can happen. Pastoral comedy, however, is much more sophisticated than Popular Comedy, since it has a potentially important theme (the nature of love) and tries to establish a more or less consistent fictional world (the country setting). While it can often feature the colloquial language of country folk, it also requires a certain sophistication in the exploration of love through poetry and (a very important element in much pastoral drama) music and song. Shakespeare began his writing career at a time when all these forms of comedy were available, and when companies and playwrights were fighting each other about what the proper form of comedy should be. The fight itself is an interesting manifestation of the growing phenomenon of the urban middle-class and the arguments about standards appropriate to its entertainment (things we are still arguing about in our debates over television content). Leading the charge for a standard of polite comedy were those with a classical education and a preference for New Comedy (e.
g. , Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's great rival) particularly because it carried a moral intention of educating the public through satire and because it celebrated the continuing vitality of classical models of drama. These writers often had little use for what they perceived as the crudity and crass appeals to the audiences lowest common denominator of Popular Comedy. In addition, New Comedy was a standard ingredient in the classical education of many young boys, who formed their own companies and generated a popular following for a time. Early in his career Shakespeare, in response to popular taste, began with New Comedy. His earliest work, especially The Comedy of Errors, patterned itself closely on classical models and stuck to the conventions of the style. But he soon began to move towards the pastoral style, taking the urban characters out of their customary setting and putting them into the countryside, shifting the emphasis from the complexities of a plot (quite bewildering at times in The Comedy of Errors, with its two sets of identical twins) to the exploration of human relationships in love (the central concern of the pastoral tradition), and relaxing the demands of naturalism appropriate to New Comedy so as to include magical elements.
The most famous relatively early example of this shift is Midsummer Nights Dream, featuring gods, fairies, magic transformations, and all sorts of implausible occurrences which come about when a few urban characters, including pairs of lovers, wander off into the woods. One way of appreciating the shift is to attend to the nature of the story. Northrup Frye once observed an important distinction between what he called Hence stories and And then" stories. In the first type, as the label Hence sure...
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