CHAPTER XI.

THE LAUGHABLE IN ART: COMEDY.

Source of impulse of comic art • 343

Scope for laughter in art as a whole • 345

Origin of jocose literature • 346

The dawn of comedy • 346

Comic incidents as development of child’s play • 347

Comic value of repetitions • 348

Elements of trickery and dupery • 349

Comedy as reflecting movements of social laughter • 351

Comic dialogue as display of wit • 353

Theories of wit • 354

Wit as intellect at play • 354

Wit and word-play • 356

Character as comic material • 357

Mode of representation of character in comedy • 358

Comic character as type • 359

Development of character-drawing in classic comedy • 359

Treatment of character in early English comedy • 361

Molière as comic portrayer • 364

His art of constructing character • 364

Contrast of the anti-social person and the social world • 365

The abstract and the concrete in Molière’s characters • 365

The comic dénouement in Molière’s plays • 368

Molière’s point of view • 368

Characteristics of Comedy of Restoration • 370

Lamb and Macaulay on moral aspect of comedy • 371

Justification of Lamb’s view of Restoration Comedy • 373

The social as distinct from the moral point of view • 373

Slackening of social restraints by comedy • 376

Limitations of field of comic presentation • 377

The comic point of view in fiction • 378

Laughter of mixed tone in literature: satire • 380

Different degrees of seriousness in satire • 381

Method of virulent satire • 382

Wit in satire • 383

Contrast of satirical and humorous literature • 384

The relation of wit to humour • 385

Boundaries of satire and humorous literature • 386

Humour as ingredient of prose fiction • 387

The boundaries of humour of fiction and of philosophy • 390

Humour in other species of literature • 390