The dawn of our own comedy shows a somewhat similar process. It was in an atmosphere of mirth that the child, half-seriously quizzing things in order to laugh the more, was born. This may be seen by a reference to the mirthful societies and their riotings which were a feature of mediæval English life. The “feast of fools” was the great occasion for satirical songs, and, later on, for dramas in which the {347} clergy were more especially taken off. No doubt, as we shall see, there existed in the old miracle-plays and moralities a simple dramatic form capable of being transformed into comedy. Yet this transformation was made possible by the spirit of mirth and revelry, which had some time before rudely broken into the solemnity of the miracle-play.[284]
The full rise of the comic drama has had its social conditions. Mr. Meredith has pointed to some of them, particularly the existence of an intelligent middle class, and the recognition of woman’s status; to which one may add, that of her conversational wit.[285] To these social conditions might be added a national mood of gaiety, coming from some new sense of lightened shoulders and a freer breathing.
The value of comedy as chief ministress to our laughter may be seen by a mere glance at its many resources. It seems able to present to the eye and ear all varieties of the amusing. As a show, it carries on the fun of children’s make-believe play. It can set before us the most grotesque aberrations of dress, carriage and manners. In its human figures, again, it presents to us in forms of its own choosing the full variety of laughable traits of mind and of character. Lastly, it can exhibit in its plots the whole gamut of teasing and practical joke which amuses ordinary men in real life.
We may defer illustration of the comic treatment of laughable traits of character, and look for a moment at the ways in which the incidents of comedy carry on the movements of primitive fun.
A glance will tell us that these incidents are woven out {348} of the play and the practical jokes of merry youth. The boisterous fun of the spectacle of a good beating, for which the lower savages have a quick sense, and which is a standing dish at the circus, is a frequent incident in comedy, both in the popular and boisterous variety of Aristophanes and Plautus, and in the quieter and more intellectual one of Molière.[286]
Another variety of amusing incident drawn from child-play and the popular fun of the circus is a repetition of words, gestures or other movements. These repetitions grow particularly funny when they take the form of an alternate going and coming, or of ending and recommencing a discourse. Amusing already in their semblance of purposeless play, they sometimes grow more droll by assuming a look of irrepressibility, as when the philosopher Pancrace in Le Mariage forcé is again and again pushed behind the coulisse and returns to renew his discourse. It has been pointed out that such movements have something of the amusing character of the toy known as Jack-in-the-box.[287]
Another class of repetitions, which we may call imitations, also frequent on the comic stage, seems in like manner to reproduce easily recognisable features of child’s play. Nothing is more characteristic of the play-mood in young animals and in children alike than an imitative {349} propagation of movement. The child’s game of making faces is an excellent example. The liking of the stage for these imitations shows how closely it remains in touch with primitive fun. This is plain enough when the action imitated is disorderly, as we may see in the rebuffs and counter-rebuffs of the circus. The repeated beatings of the wife-beater in Le Médecin malgré lui have something of this diverting effect
The amusing repetitions wrought into the mechanism of comedy are, as Molière may tell us, commonly far less aggressive. The reproduction of the series of exclamations of Cléonte on the perfidy of his mistress by his valet, Covielle, in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, and the counterpart to this, the slightly varied repetitions of the reproaches of Cléonte’s mistress by her maid, are quite delightfully suggestive of a plot on the part of Love to reduce his victims to one level of imbecility.[288]
Comedy, both ancient and modern, is full of trickery and dupery. A whole play may be one big piece of fooling, ending for the most part in a merry scene in which the deluded victim or victims come to their senses again. The spectator, who is in the secret, enjoys sympathetically the laughter of the plot-maker.
One of the simplest and earliest comic devices, another outgrowth from child’s play, seems to be a disguise. The figures of comedy towards whom our laughter is guided are not gifted with the finest of visions, and a small amount of disguise, especially when it meets and flatters their desires, suffices for complete deception. Classic comedy and that of Shakespeare make large use of such trickery. {350}