Representative English Comedies, v. 1. From the beginnings to Shakespeare

by Unknown

14. Conclusion

With but one or two exceptions the plays which we have so far passed in review fail in some respect or other of the plot that makes a comedy. A plot that is argumentative, that is a ratiocination or exemplum conducted by abstractions, is not sufficient to constitute comedy, though it may contribute to its development a unity of interest, a spiritual sequence; nor are sporadic situations and incidents sufficient, though humorously conceived and executed; nor glimpses of types, characters or manners, nor hints of passion, nor satiric speeches and dialogues, though artistically dramatized, true, appropriate, and witty. None of these constitutes comedy. Comedy demands action vitalized by a plot that is capable of revealing the social significance of the individual: an action of sufficient scope and reality to display the spirit of society in individual types and manners, or in character and sentiment; a plot sufficiently urgent to interest us, not only in the phenomena, in the concomitants, of every deed, but in its motive and inherent passion. The comedy of external life may present, by means of typical individuals and conventional manners, a reflex of that which is actual, or a criticism of it; and such a play will be realistic or satirical. The comedy of the inner life, on the other hand, since it reveals the characteristics of humanity in the heat and moment of passion, may present a vision of the ideal made concrete; it is therefore at once interpretative, constructive, and romantic. These two kinds of comedy are alike in that they display the triumph of freedom when regulated by common sense, the adjustment of the individual to society. But as they vary in function and result, so these kinds of comedy differ in the quality of action which each may present. The play of convention and manners can use only the externals of action, actions that neither strike deep nor spring from the depths, for such a play aims to reproduce appearances or merely to re-create them—to criticise and correct rather than construct. The play of character and passion, not the so-called realistic, but idealistic, selects for presentation actions whose springs are in the inner life; and that is because it would present men and women as they should be,—individuals widening the social, pressing toward the ideal, not by overstepping that which is conventional, but by informing it with new meaning and pushing back its limits. Comedy, therefore, is in the plot, and the plot must proceed from the wisdom essential to a comic view of life: acceptance of the social environment as it appears to be, because one believes in society as it should be. The dramatist, his plot and his characters, are the exponents of common sense and freedom, of the light of life as it is with the sweetness of life as it may be. Common sense, however, may become prosaic, or liberty licentious; and it is in preventing such extremes that wit and humour perform their function. Neither of these can alone make a comedy, but one of them may sometimes save it. Both should certainly characterize it. But for the former, the drama of appearances might be caricature, abuse, horse-play, or homily; but for the latter, romantic comedy would be bathos. No amount of wit, however, could save a play that did not possess a significant sequence of material and event. Though the booths of Bartholomew Fair agitate the diaphragm, they do not constitute comedy. Without plot the lunges of wit lack point; and as for the plotless play of passion, it ends in Bedlam, whence all the humour in the world cannot redeem it.

It was a step forward when allegory made way for concrete characters and manners, and the motives born of social intercourse; a further step when the dramatist ceased instructing and sought to amuse. But the final step implied the still rarer ability to create something integral and critical in one, something that should act what life means, and so unconsciously demonstrate that it is purposive, and more hopeful and amusing than we thought. Naturally enough, our earlier comic plots, when they were escaping from the symbolic, lacked sometimes in significance, and sometimes in sequence. The fables of Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton mark an advance in technical construction; but they do not escape the farcical, for their subjects are trivial. There were likewise many experiments to be made in the materials of intrigue and passion before Damon and Pithias and The Supposes could fulfil, even in part, the requirements of significant romance. And when, at last, the play with a plot had come to its own, it was long before it attained wisdom to suffuse the appearances of life with their illuminating characteristic, and imagination to colour the course of characteristic events.