Shakespeare's Comedies 'Comedy could simply be defined as a dramatic presentation which makes us laugh. Literary and cultural critics, however, tend to regard something as a comedy not so much because it makes us laugh - laughter may be evoked in tragic circumstances - but because a certain set of conventions is being followed. The very act of breaking with these conventions is an acknowledgement that they remain in place.
Those of Shakespeare's plays called comedies are so designated primarily because they adhere to a particular set of expectations - not necessarily because they are funny. Some are, of course - but the history plays - even the tragedies - can, in my experience, get more laughs in performance than productions of
All's Well That Ends Well or
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Thus, although
The Merchant of Venice is usually regarded as a comedy because of the conventions it deploys, the subject matter of its main plot is not particularly a laughing matter. It is worth considering, however, that it
might have been for some or all of its original audience.
What all the comedies seem to have in common is their preoccupation with the journey of young women (and sometimes men) from the state of virginity to that of marriage. Whereas tragedy works towards death, that moment which gives a particular meaning to the actions of the protagonists, comedy traces the passage of young people out of their parents' control and into marriage.
... comedy is often about one or more young persons whose love meets an obstacle of some sort.
Often some sort of resistance to this obstacle, be it parental disapproval or the apparent refusal of the loved one to return that love, is shown. The central plot of a comedy often requires the young people to disguise themselves (usually with women cross-dressed as men, like Portia in
The Merchant of Venice, Viola in
Twelfth Night or Rosalind in
As You Like It), or to abscond into the woods (like Hermia and Helena and their lovers in
A Midsummer Night's Dream, or Rosalind in
As You Like It, or to undertake a journey (like Petruchio and Katherina in
The Taming of the Shrew). When they emerge on the other side of the experience, something will have happened to make their love a social reality in some way, and the play ends with an apparently happpy union.'
from Sean McEvoy (2000) Shakespeare: The Basics, London: Routledge
