Commedia...

Forgive me for being a little less intense in my posting. We're putting up a show this weekend, and I'm a little distracted to say the least. But being immersed in comedy for the last week has caused me to look back at class for this comedy I've read and to view it through the humorist scopes I presented earlier this semester.

• Exaggeration: Larger than Life
• Incongruity: Unexpected Combinations
• Wit: Surprising Ideas
• Recognition: "Isn't Life Just Like That?"

I feel like Shakespeare has based a lot of the humor in his plays (the ones I've read so far) on wit, recognition, and exaggeration. I'm just going to muse on this last aspect of comedy. Humor me. (:

His humorous characters (particularly in his comedies) possess a certain exaggerated quality about them that make them seem more like caricatures than characters. Pistol was certainly more two-dimensional than the title character in Henry V, and Polonius serves the role of the foolish old man. In As You Like It, many of the country folk serve flat roles as the simple minded stereotypical country folk.

This makes me think about what Dr. Burton was referring to when he brought up Commedia Dell'arte and the exaggerated roles Shakespeare casted his characters in for his plays.

Yet after watching this video, I have to wonder, is this form of comedy an exaggeration or a form of recognition? Shakespeare could be using these forms of exaggeration to connect with the audience and make them recognize, "Isn't life just like that?"

Which is why after watching this video, I came to another conclusion:

I can't speak Italian, yet I know exactly what this guy is portraying with each of these characters. Maybe, this was a way that Shakespeare could make his plays more relatable with his audiences. Let's keep in mind that his viewers ranged from all classes in society. Perhaps certain wit would be too high for some and too low for others.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about it like that before, but maybe Shakespeare's use of exaggeration was just another way he commented on his society and allowed others to step into his world without feeling alienated.