2. Aristotle, Poetics
Aristotle’s Poetics [c.325 B.C.E.] is the first theoretical statement of the nature of tragedy in the
European tradition. It mentions comedy only three times.
(1) In chapter 2 Aristotle makes the influential statement that “the distinction between comedy
and tragedy [is that] comedy aims at representing men as worse than they are nowadays,
tragedy as better" [from Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, trans. T. S. Dorsch, Classical Literary Criticism
(Penguin, 1965), p.33].
From this develops the long-standing idea that whilst tragedy shows human beings in a dignified
light, comedy shows them in an undignified light – a more important distinction to Aristotle than
anything to do with being funny or being serious or sad. The moral justification of comedy arises
from this – that its purpose is to show human vices and follies in order to hold these up to ridicule.
Elizabethan drama interpreted the distinction between “better” and “worse” in terms of social class,
so that lower class characters in Shakespeare’s plays are represented as comic – most clearly in the
tragedies, where kings and princes play out the “serious” drama and comic interludes are provided
by e.g. the Porter in Macbeth or the Gravediggers in Hamlet.
(2) In chapter 3 Aristotle traces the etymology of “comedy” back to the early Greek (Dorian) word
for a “village”:
[Whereas] the Athenians call outlying villages demoi, [the Dorians] themselves call
them komai, so that comedians take their name, not from komazein (‘to revel’), but
from their touring in the komai when lack of appreciation drove them from the city
[the polis]. (p.34)
The distinction between “city” and “village” echoes the distinction between “tragedy” representing
human beings as “better” and “comedy” as “worse.” As well as laughing at the “low” world of
“country bumpkins” and “village idiots,” comedy is seen as a way in which this “low” world of
outsiders and revellers mocks the “high” and serious values of city-dwellers, ridiculing them for their
pomposity, and undermining their authority with laughter.
(3) In chapter 6 Aristotle promises to “speak later about… comedy” (p.38). But the discussion
never takes place. According to some traditions a second volume of the Poetics was written and then
lost. One consequence of this lack of any basic discussion of the nature of comedy is to reinforce
the idea that tragedy is to be taken seriously – because it deals with serious emotions and events, but
also because it is a dramatic form with a serious body of theory devoted to it – and that comedy is to
be thought of as secondary, frivolous and unworthy of serious attention. But not in this module…
(4) A modern version of the “village” versus the “city” from Little Britain:
Social worker: “Vicky, where is your baby?”
Vicky Pollard: “Swapped it for a Westlife CD.”
Social worker: “Vicky, how could you do such a thing?”
Vicky Pollard: “I know. They’re rubbish.”