ABSTRACT
By tragi-comedy one may mean any one of a number of things. John Fletcher, following an Italian source, said that such a play “ is not so called in respect to mirth and
killing, ”—that is, because of the mixture of comic matter with a tragic plot, to which the term came often to be applied,—“ but in respect it wants [i.e. lacks] deaths . . . yet brings some near i t .9,1 In other words, it develops a situation of mortal peril, from which the characters even tually escape. This we have already found approximated by Shakespeare in such comedies as The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado, where we paused to ask ourselves whether they could be called examples of true comedy, in view of the serious situations and emotions involved; and one may frankly admit that the line between these plays and certain of those reserved for this chapter is rather in substantial. At this point, then, tragi-comedy is very close to romance. For it is of the nature of romance to represent perilous adventure and deliverance, to thrill with uncertainty and surprise by fortunate escape, and in general to interest us much more in what happens to its characters than in what they are in themselves or accom plish because of what they are. If the story is in dramatic form, the difference between romance and comedy is only relative, a matter of emphasis rather than of material. Plays of this more romantic and less dramatic kind became increasingly popular during the closing years of Shake speare’s activity, and he experimented with them as he had done with almost every other fashion of the stage.
