The origins of comedy

The origins of comedy are in the 5th Century BC. So this was in the Greek era- these plays were performed in Classical Athens as parts of festivals called Dionysia. These were performed on different days to tragedies. Greek comedies would be zany and would mock both political and philosophical ideas. Aristophanes a prolific writer of comedy during the 4th and 5th century BC he is first and foremost a political writer; a satirist most commonly known for mocking the politicians of the time. Aristophanes says, “comedy is written for inferior (normal) people by inferior (normal) people. Comedy features no real pain unlike tragedy. We enjoy laughing at disgraceful behavior, which we would never involve ourselves in even if we may like to.
The Romans did comedy under the same sorts of lines but they added: stereotypical characters, interlocking subplots, unity of place, mistaken identities, hidden characters, chance encounters, everyday speech, long lost siblings and acts and scenes.
The Medieval times were between the 5th century and the 15th century. Some writers during this time saw the merits of using comedy to educate people in religion. However some evidently saw a different approach as the times actually saw a rise in bawdiness and what you could call the real birth of puns and double entendre. Erasmus a comic playwright during the 15th Century wrote a volume, which was called “In Praise of Folly” this featured many jokes and puns relating to biblical matters.
Shakespeare came during this time he wrote many plays some of which are comedies (17 to be exact). These comedies often had pastoral themes and anachronistic events and attitudes. They had a structure of an exposition, then there was a complication and finally a resolution. His plays often had changeling, travesty, transgression and an inversion theory in them but usually not all together.
We then get to the restoration period- this was from 1660-1710. This was after public stage performances had been banned for eighteen years by the Puritans so this was a well-welcomed era. This era was known for its sexual nature that was a characteristic that was encouraged by Charles II. During this period there was also the first professional female playwright who was called Aphra Behn.
Next was the Victorian era- this was a point in which both literature and theatre took off. During the reign of Victoria lots of new theatres and theatre schools were built. The plays mocked society and the ideas of respectability and social problems. The plays mocked drama that had been before it so it was difficult to take their values seriously.
Finally their was the post war era- these comedies exposed the hollowness of the society at this time post war. Satire and farce were very popular and there were working class left wing writers. They were also keen on reworking both old plays and strucures.