Types
of
COMEDY
Comedy is a form of drama
that has a happy ending.
Humor comes from the
dialogue and situations.
SUB-GENRE
OF
COMEDY
ROMANTIC COMEDY
It focuses on lighthearted,
humorous plot lines which are
often centered on romantic
ideas like how true love is able
to overcome many obstacles.
SENTIMENTAL COMEDY
It began in the 18th century as a
reaction to the immoral tone of English
Restoration play. This sub-genre of
comedy focuses on the middle-class
protagonists who are able to
successfully overcome a couple of moral
trials.
TRAGIC COMEDY
It portrays characters who
take on tragedy with humor
in order to bring out happy
endings out of serious
situations.
TRAGEDY
Tragedy is a form of drama in
which events lead to the
downfall of the main character,
often a person of great
significance, like a king or hero.
SUB-GENRE
OF
TRAGEDY
GREEK TRAGEDY
Typically, it involves a protagonist of high
rank who commits a mistake in judgment
(flawed) and accepts his fall from grace.
Typically, it includes the elements of Gods,
mythology, conflict, suffering and catharsis.
Among the great Greek tragedians were
Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.
ROMAN TRAGEDY
These are mostly adaptations of Greek
tragedies. The Roman philosopher
Seneca wrote nine plays which still
exist at present and adopted by
Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights
during the late 16th and early 17th
centuries.
ELIZABETHAN & JACOBEAN TRAGEDY
Elizabethan tragedies, which are not all written
by Shakespeare, often involve main characters
of high status (nobility, military rank, among
others) who committed an error or flawed,
encounter a reversal of fortune and die towards
the end of the play. On the other hand,
Jacobean tragedies usually have the
characteristic of revenge tragedies.
REVENGE TRAGEDY
This type of tragedy often involves one
character who seeks revenge upon
another character in the story for an
evil doing. The most common examples
of this are Hamlet by Shakespeare and
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster.
TRAGICOMEDY
This is a single dramatic work
which consists of a combination
of tragic and comic elements.
One popular example of this is
the play Waiting for Godot by
Samuel Beckett.
DOMESTIC TRAGEDY
Unlike the Elizabethan period tragedy,
it portrays a common man in a domestic
setting as the tragic hero in the story.
The best examples for this are Henrik
Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Eugene
O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.
FARCE
Farce is a comedy that seeks to
entertain the audience through
situations that are highly
exaggerated, extravagant,
ridiculous, absurd, and
improbable.
MELODRAMA
A melodrama is a dramatic work wherein
the plot, which is typically sensational and
designed to appeal strongly to the emotions,
takes precedence over detailed
characterization. Melodramas typically
concentrate on dialogue that is often
bombastic or excessively sentimental,
rather than action.
OPERA
This type combines theater, dialogue, music
and dance to tell grand stories of tragedy
or comedy; hence, it is known as a versatile
genre of drama. This genre requires their
performers to be both actors and singers
since they will be expressing their emotions
and intentions through song instead of a
dialogue.
DOCUDRAMA
This new genre involves
dramatic portrayals of historic
events or non-fictional
happenings. It is more often
presented in movies such as
Apollo 13 and 12 Years a Slave.
