The Death of Comedy

604 Pages·2001·1.97 MB·English

by  Erich Segal

The Death
of Comedy

(cid:1)
The Death of Comedy
Erich Segal
harvard university press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2001
Copyright © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
all rights reserved
printedintheunitedstatesofamerica
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Segal, Erich, 1937–
The death of comedy / Erich Segal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-00643-7 (alk. paper)
1. Comedy—History and criticism. I. Title.
PN1922 .S44 2001
809.2′523—dc21 2001024437
To Karen, Francesca, and Miranda,
with love
And in memoriam Harry Levin (1912–1994),
teacher, scholar, friend
contents
Co(cid:1)ntents
Preface ix
1. Etymologies: Getting to the Root of It 1
2. The Song of theKomos 10
3. The Lyre and the Phallus 27
4. Aristophanes: The One and Only? 44
5. Failure and Success 68
6. TheBirds: The Uncensored Fantasy 85
7. Requiem for a Genre? 101
8. The Comic Catastrophe 124
9. O Menander! O Life! 153
10. Plautus Makes an Entrance 183
11. A Plautine Problem Play 205
12. Terence: The African Connection 220
13. The Mother-in-Law of Modern Comedy 239
14. Machiavelli: The Comedy of Evil 255
15. Marlowe:SchadeandFreude 273
contents
viii
16. Shakespeare: Errors andEros 286
17. TwelfthNight:Dark Clouds over Illyria 305
18. Molière: The Class of ’68 329
19. The Fox, the Fops, and the Factotum 363
20. Comedy Explodes 403
21. Beckett: The Death of Comedy 431
Coda 453
Notes 459
Index 577
pprreeffaaccee
P(cid:1)reface
T
he“Death”ofComedyisametaphor,notahistory.Ittracestheevo-
lution of the classical form from its early origins in the misogynistic
quip by the quasi-legendary sixth-century b.c. Susarion of Megara,
through countless weddings and happy endings, to the exasperated
monosyllables of Samuel Beckett—the Buster Keaton of modern dra-
matists—whose characters cannot evensay “I do,” much less “do” any-
thing.
Thismakesnoclaimtobeanexhaustivestudy,butratherisanex-
ploration—some might say exploitation—of various landmarks in the
historyofagenrewhichºourishedalmostunchangedinthemorethan
twomillenniathatfollowedTerence’sdeath.Itwouldbeimpossibleto
dealwitheveryplayofeveryauthorstudiedwithintheconªnesofasin-
gle volume. The aim has been to illustrate comedy’s glorious life cycle
andultimatedestructionbythe“intellectuals”oftheso-calledTheater
of the Absurd.
Thechaptersthatfollowaretheproductofmorethanthirtyyearsof
teachingcomedyatHarvard,Yale,Princeton,andthenYaleagain.Dur-
ingthistimetheyoungmenandwomenIwasprivilegedtohaveasmy