ABSTRACT
The language is that of everyday life. Tragedy, on the other hand, employs kings and princes, whose affairs are those of the city, the fortress, and the camp. A tragedy opens more tranquilly than a comedy, but the outcome is horrifying. The language is grave, polished, removed from the colloquial. Comedy has proved less vulnerable in this than tragedy. In England, for instance, writers like Noël Coward and Ben Travers have been able to ply their craft with commercial and critical success, without breaking the mould of comedy of manners and farce respectively, several generations after the Ubu affair. As early as 1908, Luigi Pirandello had defined the difference between the comic and what he called the humorous in his essay on Humounsm. In Renaissance usage, the term tended to describe a potentially tragic action that ended happily. The central metaphor is composed of the chairs that take over the stage.
