Thursday, September 24, 2015

What is the difference between Shakespearean and Jonsonian comedy?

Shakespearean comedy curiously combines romance and
realism as in Twelfth Night and The Merchant of
Venice
, and primarily aimed at fun, it is only covertly and delightfully
satirical,  while Jonsonian comedy is more overtly realistic and purported to be
moralistic and satirical. Shakespearean comedy combines elements of love, adventure,
music and fairy-tale motifs of sorts with the jealousies, conspiracies and intriguing
commotions of the real world so that the trajectory of romance is paralleled and
critiqued by the trajectory of realism. The main story of Duke Orsino's love at first
sight for Countess Olivia, and Olivia's loyal admiration for Orsino in Twelfth
Night
is paralleled, contrasted, and critiqued by the subplot with the
gulling of Olivia's steward Malvolio at its centre, and Sir Andrew's foolish passion to
marry Olivia as a piece of mocking travesty of Orsino's passion for the
Countess.


While the comedies of Shakespeare are not
strictly located in specifically and realistically identified temporal and spatial
settings, Ben Jonson's comedies are all set in contemporary urban locations in and
around London. Illyria in Twelfth Night, Forest of Arden
in As You Like It, even the Venice in The Merchant of
Venice
is a place which seems more symbolic and extra-geographical rather
than a real place in real time. Prosper's island in  The Tempest
would be another pertinent example.


Jonsonian comedy was
modelled on the theory of "humours". Characters used to bear names signifying their
dominant traits, and these characters were social types having obsessive behaviour
patterns of their own. In Shakespeare's comedies we find men and women more universally
composed since these plays were not aimed to be topical or
moralistic.


Perhaps the most obvious distinctive element of
Shakesperean comedy was the wonderful presence of the Fool like Touchstone
in As You Like It and Feste in Twelfth Night.
Making a great display of their verbal wit and professional expertise, Shakespeare's
Fools added a marvelously unique dimension to the genre of comic drama, the kind of
which was out of Jonson's temper and genius.

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