HIGH COMEDY, LOW COMEDY, AND FARCE
Comedy divides into higher and lower. Low comedy concerns itself directly or indirectly with manners. “The Alchemist” of Jonson busies itself directly with manners by means of characters varying from types of a single aspect to well-individualized figures. Comedy of intrigue, centering about a love story, deals in complicated situations arising therefrom, but indirectly paints manners as it characterizes. “The Shoemaker’s Holiday”〖H. C., xlvii, 469ff.〗 may perhaps stand as a specimen of this type, though Fletcher’s “The Wild-Goose Chase” is a better example. High comedy, as George Meredith pointed out in his masterly “Essay on Comedy,” deals in thoughtful laughter. This laughter comes from the recognition, made instantaneously by the author, of the comic value of a comparison or contrast. For instance, in “Much Ado About Nothing” it is high comedy at which we laugh when from moment to moment we contrast Benedick and Beatrice as they see themselves and as we see them in the revelatory touches of the dramatist.
Farce treats the improbable as probable, the impossible as possible. In the second case it often passes into extravaganza or burlesque. “The Frogs”〖H. C., viii, 439ff.〗 of Aristophanes illustrates farcical burlesque. In the best farce to-day we start with some absurd premise as to character or situation, but if the premises be once granted we move logically enough to the ending.