Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Alexandrine grammarians, and most likely Aristophanes of Byzantium in particular, seem to have been the first to divide Greek comedy into what became the canonical three periods: [3] Old Comedy (ἀρχαία archaía), Middle Comedy (μέση mésē) and New Comedy (νέα néa). These divisions appear to be largely arbitrary, and ancient ...
The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός kōmikós), which strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking". [5] Of this, the word came into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time, passed through various shades of meaning. [6]
While sarcasm (harsh ridicule or mockery) is often directly associated with verbal irony (meaning the opposite of what is said) and the two are frequently used together; sarcasm is not necessarily ironic by definition, and either element can be used without the other. [33] Examples of sarcasm and irony used together: "My you're early!"
But the early release of dramatic tension is consistent with the holiday meanings in Old Comedy [59] and it allows the audience to relax in uncomplicated enjoyment of the spectacle, the music, jokes and celebrations that characterize the remainder of the play. The celebration of the hero's victory often concludes in a sexual conquest and ...
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. [1]
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.
The Philogelos consists of 265 jokes, although some of the jokes are repeated with slight variations. They are sorted by the stock characters they feature, including the dumb or absent-minded scholar (Ancient Greek: σχολαστικός), the con man, the misanthrope, the witty commentator (Ancient Greek: εὐτράπελος), doctors and patients, teachers and students, and husbands and ...
A sexual joke about attraction, based on sexual stereotypes. Ribaldry is present to some degree in every culture and has likely been around for all of human history. Works like Lysistrata by Aristophanes, Menaechmi by Plautus, Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius, and The Golden Ass of Apuleius are ribald classics from ancient Greece and Rome.