Comedy of manners

 Comedy of Manners is a play concerned with satirizing society’s manners. A manner is the method in which everyday duties are performed, conditions of society or a way of speaking. It implies a polite and well-bred behaviour. Comedy of Manners is known as high comedy because it involves a sophisticated wit and talent in the writing of the script. In this sense it is both intellectual and very much the opposite of slapstick, which requires little skill with the script and is largely a physical form of comedy. In a Comedy of Manners however, there is often minimal physical action and the play may involve heavy use of dialogue. A Comedy of Manners usually employs an equal amount of both satire and farce resulting in a hilarious send-up of a particular social group. Most plays of the genre were carefully constructed to satirize the very people watching them. This was usually the middle to upper classes in society, who were normally the only people wealthy enough to afford going to the theatre to see a comedy of manners in the first place. The playwrights knew this in advance and fully intended to create characters that were sending up the daily customs of those in the audience watching the play. The satire tended to focus on their materialistic nature, never-ending desire to gossip and hypocritical existence. It reaches to new heights in the restoration period. Major contributors to the genre in England at the time were William Wycherley’s The Country Wife (1675) and William Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700).

(ii) Sentimental comedy, a dramatic genre of the 18th century, denoting plays in which middle-class protagonists triumphantly overcomes a series of moral trials. Such comedy aimed at producing tears rather than laughter. Sentimental comedies reflected contemporary philosophical conceptions of humans as inherently good but capable of being led astray through bad example. Sentimental comedy had its roots in early 18th century tragedy, which had a vein of morality similar to that of sentimental comedy but had loftier characters and subject matter than sentimental comedy. For example: Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, Sheridan’s The Rivals and A School for Scandal and Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

(iii) Comedy of humours, a dramatic genre most closely associated with the English playwright Ben Jonson based on the medical theory that the human body held a balance of four liquids, or humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile (choler), and black bile (melancholy). When properly balanced, these humours were thought to give the individual a healthy mind in a healthy body. It is also known as “satiric comedy” or the “corrective comedy”. It highlights the sombre side of the humanity and apply laughing is a satiric weapon. Jonson’s “Volpone” is the excellent instance of this comedy.

(iv) Tendency comedy is a kind of comedy in which we laugh on persons not because he is ludicrous but because he is being make fun of.

(v) Festive comedies deal with the celebrations of life. Victory symbolizes the perpetual motion of life. Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” is an ideal example of the comedy. It is also known as romantic comedy. Shakespeare’s “As You like It” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are the instance of romantic comedy. They depict a love affair which goes in a state of great confusion due to problems and conceal but ends in a happy union.

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