Winda ayu septia / 181220079

1. Definition of Comedy

A comedy is a fictional work in which the materials are selected and managed primarily in
order to interest and amuse the audience: the characters and their discomfitures engage our
pleasurable attention rather than our profound concern, we are made to feel confident that no
great disaster will occur, and usually at the end of this comedy drama the action turn out
happily for the main characters.

History of Comedy
In the Earliest Greek of the 5th century BCE, called Old Comedy or Old Attic Comedy by
later historians, followed intricate structural patterns and displayed complex poetic
conventions. The word comedy is consistent with this explanation, for as “a komos song” its
Greek meaning is “a song of revels” or ‘a song sung by merrymakers”. We may conclude that
these komos processions were encouraged officially in the belief and hope that human
ceremonies would encourage divine favor and bring about prosperity and happiness.

Comedy began with many of these characteristic and has retained them to the present day.
Love, marriage, and ritualized celebrations of a happy future are usually the major concerns
of comedy. Often the plots and actions are outrageous, the characters are funny, and the
language is satirical, vulgar, and biting.
On the other hand, by the end of the sixteenth century, when Shakespeare had completed
many of his comedies, English comedy was in full bloom. It has commonly been observed
that the comedy was Latin in structure but English in
character.

Differences in comic style, content, dialogue and intent that have evolved over the centuries
make it possible to divide comedy into various types. The broadest of these divisions, based
on both style and content, separates comic literature into high comedy and low comedy.
There are types of high comedy develops mainly from character, as following :

• Romantic comedy focuses on problems of youthful love.

By views action in romantic comedy and character from the standpoint of earnest young
lovers. This kind of drama is built on a plot of intrigue featuring lovers who try to overcome
opposition to achieve a successful union. The aim of such plays is amusement and
entertainment rather than ridicule and reform.

• Comedy of manners tests the strength of social customs and assumptions.

Related to romantic comedy is the comedy of manners, an important type from the
seventeenth century to our own times. The comedy of manners examines and satirizes
attitudes and customs in the light of high intellectual and moral standards. The dialogue is
witty and sophisticated, and characters are often measured according to their linguistic and
intellectual powers. The love plots are serious and real, even though they share with romantic
comedy the need to create intrigues to overcome opposition and impediments. People might
consider them not only as plays of manners but also as plays of social and personal problems.

• Satiric comedy, like all satire, ridicules vices and follies.

The playwright of satiric comedy assumes the perspective of a rational and moderate
observer measuring human life against a moderate norm that is represented by high and
serious characters.

• And the last in low comedy emphasis is on funny remarks and outrageous circumstances;
complications develop from situation and plot rather than from character. Plays of this type
are by definition full of physical humor and stage business – a character rounds his forefinger
and thumb to imitate a hole in a wall, through which other characters speak; a grumpy man
constantly breaks furniture; a character masquerading as a doctor takes the pulse of a father to
determine the daughter’s medical condition; characters who have just declaimed their love
are visited by
people to whom they formerly swore love. The classic type of low comedy is farce the aim of
which, in the words of Henry Fielding, “is but to make you laugh”. A farce is a weird
physical comedy overflowing with silly characters, improbable happenings, wild clowning,
pratfalls, extravagant language, and vulgar jokes.

2. Because in this drama "The Proposal" by Anton Chekhov's, shows the struggle to balance
the economic needs of marriage and what the characters really want. This shows Lomov's
decision to marry Natalya as a joke. They married to add wealth and possesions of them or to
satisfy social pressure. The satire is conveyed successfully by emphasizing the couple's
foolish arguments over small things. The main argument in this drama is about fight over the
legacy of "The Oxen Meadows" and the two dogs, they called "Guess and Squeezer".
However, at the end in this drama, Lomov and Natalya the main characters just married and
live happines.