Modest Proposals of Modem Socialists

Abstract

A noun is not an adjective, and vice versa. I affirm this persnickety truism because Modem Drama is dedicating a special issue to Modern Comedy, which is not a mere accumulation of comic techniques. Almost every play of our frivolous era sports some comic element, so broad is our ticklish spectrum. But comedy: what is that? Our two main traditions derive from classical and medieval periods: I) classical — ridendo castigat mores, with the implication that the mores are correctable through ridicule; 2) medieval — a piece with a happy ending. Many subsequent critics blend the two, requiring that a play be funny and happy. I accept the double bind. To be a comedy, a modern play should be funny and should end happily. But "funny" and "happy" are loaded words. As funny, I therefore propose a supple embrace of all kinds of humor, especially accommodating the festive spirit that has been brilliantly studied by Bakhtine, Barber, Whitman. As happy, I am not aware of anyone who quite shares what I propose — an ending that conforms to the putative audience's sense of propriety. Thus, melodrama can he comedy if the handsome hero is united with the imperiled heroine through the machinations of a comic character, as in Boucicaulfs Shaughraun. Satire, too, is comedy, for the "right" audience appreciates the punishment of Volpone and Tartuffe. Sentimental comedy, in contrast, is mislabeled, since it is not funny; The Clandestine Marriage is more typical than She Stoops To Conquer. It is grotesque comedy that hest fits our sour half—century, but the mere presence of grotesque elements does not define a genre. If King Lear is a "comedy of the grotesque,'" we had better laugh all genre away.