And people generally relate to tragic characters more than comedic ones. I read somewhere tragedy is what happens to us and comedy is what happens to others.
Humour and tragedy do belong together. The universe can be a tragic place. “Humor is just another defense against the universe.” ― Mel Brooks
I think comedic scenes can add to, rather than detract from, dramatic stories. It can reveal much about a character, and it can be used to communicate camaraderie between characters. And honestly, even at its worst, life can just be funny sometimes. There are a few scenes that could be considered somewhat comedic in this famous historical drama, but this is the first example that came to mind (and I love it): Two weevils crept from the crumbs. "You see those weevils, Stephen?" said Jack solemnly. "I do." "Which would you choose?" "There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them." "But suppose you had to choose?" "Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth." "There, I have you," cried Jack. "You are bit - you are completely dished. Don't you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!”
You've got me thinking about this now. Offhand I can't think of mostly serious novels I've read with moments of humor. It seems if there's going to be comedy, at least generally, the majority of the book is comedic. I think it's because comedy must be handled differently in books than in movies/TV shows etc. When you have actors, music, timing of camera moves etc, all of that can contribute to signal 'We're being funny now, it's OK to laugh'. But you don't have nearly as many cues in writing. I've written stories that probably lean more toward comedy overall, but that get serious at times. I don't remember ever going the other way though. Or maybe it's more fair to say I've written some whimsical stories that can lean into either comedy or seriousness when I want. In fact now I want to say I'm not sure I've ever written anything totally serious, it's always whimsical to some degree.
Ah yes, I suppose character-based humor works in an otherwise serious story. Where a character says or does funny things. But probably not situational humor, like in a sitcom. I suspect once you veer that way in a story you're stuck there for the duration or you'll never get the readers to take the rest of it seriously.
Yeah, situational might not work in larger doses in a serious work, but in smaller ones, might be fine. No literary example where a comedic scene felt immediately out of place and off-putting comes to mind, though. A movie example popped into my head - Life is Beautiful. I was baffled when I watched this, knowing that it was universally acclaimed at the time. It's the worst mix of drama and comedy that I can think of. I was still a teenager at the time, but I was like, "wtf is this insanity?"
Aw, too bad. That would've been the more fun etymology, but wiki says it's from Latin: "The word satire derives from satura, and its origin was not influenced by the Greek mythological figure of the satyr."
I'd need to think on that for a while. You might be right, but my gut wants to say even a little sitcom is poison in a really serious work. Written anyway. It's different in movies and TV. Now that I'm thinking about the differences, I'm realizing I was wrong about some shows I always thought of as sitcoms, like Chips. I think the comedy was always a character saying or doing something funny in an otherwise serious show. MASH, Happy Days, Charlie's Angels, all serious shows with some character comedy here and there. And maybe a few comic relief characters like Ralph Malph and Potsie, and Bosley. Or was he just not a good actor? Hard to tell. And I barely remember these shows anymore. Sitcoms would include Gilligan's Island, Three's Company, I guess the Addams Family and the Munsters. The entire situation would get so stupid and goofy no serious show could recover from it. Though you could have serious moments or scenes, maybe even serious episodes now and then for the most part, with just a funny scene or two. Seriousness doesn't seem corrosive to comedy. Trying to think of where it's been done...
Maybe Andy Griffith? It was mostly a serious show except for Don Knotts and Gomer and Goober Pyle. They were comic relief so over the top it became pure sitcom when they were on. But that's a show, the rules seem to be different.
and related to "saturated" - from Etymology online: from French satire (14c.) and directly from Latin satira "satire; poetic medley," earlier satura, in lanx satura "mixed dish, dish filled with various kinds of fruit," literally "full dish," from fem. of satur "sated"
Despite what they said, that does sound at least somehow related to satyrs to me. Dishes filled with fruit was kind of their thing, as was getting sated on wine and women (or fawns) and flute music etc. Maybe the two words aren't strictly related etymologically, but I think there's a connection anyway.
Just checked the rest of the entry: The form was altered in Latin by influence of Greek satyr, on the mistaken notion that the literary form is related to the Greek satyr drama (see satyr). So I went to the satyr entry and found this: satyr (n.) late 14c., satire, "one of a type of woodland deities part human or animal; demigod or spirit of the air or woods, companion of Bacchus," from Old French satire So yes, some kind of connection.
Looked up the definition of sitcom, and really it just says (on several different sites) a comic show featuring a fixed cast that returns for each episode, and it's funny. So it isn't technically a different kind of comedy from what I'm calling character-based. But it does seem to be taken to more of an extreme. When a comedy scene begins, all the characters seem to get incredibly stupid and zany. Way more so than a serious story would support I think (in general—of course any rule can be broken, and the really good writers can break make it work). So it's more a matter of degree, though I can think of some really goofy things happening in say Gilligan's Island that weren't character-based, like a giant shimmying spider that lumbered extremely slowly across the set. And characters so ridiculous they'd destroy any moderately serious story, like Wrong-Way Feldman.
I realise I've come late to this thread- my time of late has been somewhat 'subject to the requirements of the service'- but I always find works without humour to be rather unrealistic. Even in the grimmest circumstances I can remember, sometimes with multiple lives on the line or already lost, there were always jokes and in between those times it was pretty much non-stop. I understand that rapid-fire levity might undermine certain effects a writer wants to create, but characters who don't joke and laugh bear no resemblance to any human I've ever met.
That might be the source, yes. But in general, I think characters in comedies get somehwat dehumanized in order to be perceived as funny.
You made me think of Charlie Chaplin, who was actually the first comedian in film to bring human pathos to comedy. What Makes Charlie Chaplin Endure
I recently read about Chaplin in relation to grotesque, I think human pathos along with comedy could be one of the definitions of the grotesque, other definitions include bizarre/fantastic etc along with comedy.
here's a quote from Charlie Chaplin: "Where words leave off, gesture begins. Don't we speak of a person being speechless with rage, dancing with impatience, setting his teeth? The final motions of the soul are speechless, animal, grotesque, or of an incomparable beauty."
Gesture, body and mask are often emphasized in grotesque I think. The statement also reminded me of the "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" quote, in a sense that not everything can be expressed through words (I partially agree).
