New Comedy in 'King Lear.'
1994; University of Iowa; Volume: 73; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0031-7977
Autores Tópico(s)Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
ResumoAlways more or less implicit in comedy reside energies destabilizing and subversive.(1) From the beginning, Aristotle recognized this darker potential, carefully stipulating that the hamartema, fault, error or deformity, of comedy be painful and not destructive (1449a34-35). The preemptive strike here, phrased in a double negative, reveals precisely what in comedy can never be wholly ignored, denied, or excluded. Later playwrights continually transgress the boundaries that define this genre, creating plays that exploit in new ways conventions and expectations. Ironically enough, such transgression receives impetus from the very sources that would contain it - namely, the traditions of humanistic commentary on classical texts. Renaissance editions of Terence frequently begin with an influential preface, De tragoedia et comoedia, consisting actually of two essays, one by Evanthius, the other by Donatus. Here the grammarians clearly outline and schematize the genres, carefully establishing and balancing the differences in persons, subjects, endings, and origins; witness Evanthius: inter tragoediam autem et comoediam cum multa tum inprimis hoc distat, quod in comoedia mediocres fortunae hominum, parui impetus periculorum laetique sunt exitus actionum, at in tragoedia omnia contra, ingentes personae, magni timores, exitus funesti habentur; et illic prima turbulenta, tranquilla ultima, in tragoedia contrario ordine res aguntur; tum quod in tragoedia fugienda uita, in comoedia capessenda exprimitur; postremo quod omnis comoedia de fictis est argumentis, tragoedia saepe de historia fide petitur.(2) Now between tragedy and comedy then, these differences are important: in comedy the fortunes of men are ordinary, the forces of danger, slight, and the outcomes of action, joyful. But in tragedy everything is opposite: the characters are grand, the terrors great the outcomes deadly. And in comedy the beginning, is turbulent, the end tranquil, while in tragedy the opposite holds true. Tragedy depicts life as something to be fled, comedy, as something to be seized. Finally, all the plots of comedy are fictitious, whereas those of tragedy are often truly historical. Comedy is useful, the argument runs, because it offers positive and negative examples to its audience. And yet, in practice the moral imperative operative in humanistic commentary and Renaissance adaptation collapses these oppositions between the genres. The overriding urge to polemicize comedy, to find in every scene morally instructive theses, for example, confers upon the action a consequence and seriousness appropriate to tragedy. The duping of Chremes by Davos and the partially complicitous Mysis, an analogue from Andria (740 ff.) for Edmund's and Edgar's deceits in Lear, elicits the following commentary from Petrus Marsus: Versutos homines, & callidos viros, miros modis & multiplici vaframento moliri deceptionem, nec esse cuiuis facile dolos interpretari ac uerum dispicere, docet haec scena. Multos enim recessus habet vita hominis & varias latebras vt in Epistolis scribit Plinius. Et boni viri prudentia, quae virtuti semper adhaeret, malitiosorum versutiis ac simulationibus ideo decipitur, quoniam ex se alios iudicat, nec simulationem putat id esse quo capitur, sed officium.(3) This scene teaches that wily men and clever fellows, by many means and schemes, engineer deceptions, and that it is not easy for someone to see through their tricks and to discover the truth. For the life of a man has many recesses and various hidden places, as Pliny writes in his letters. And the prudence of the good man, which always attaches itself to virtue, is for that reason deceived by the tricks and simulations of the wicked; for the good man judges others by himself, and doesn't think it is a trick by which he is taken in, but a well-intentioned act. A bright and lively comic scene inspires reflection on the prevalence of deception, the illusory nature of truth, the dark recesses of human life, the disadvantages of prudence, the deceit of the wicked, the myopia and victimization of the good. …
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