COMEDY

144 GLOSSARYcenturies. Commedia dell’arte is notable for its use of masks, each onerepresenting the distended features of a familiar stock character. Thesestock characters are then found in stock scenarios and respondaccordingly, the actors improvising the specific action and dialogue atthe moment of performance.Commedia erudita the ‘erudite’, or learned, counterpart to commediadell’arte, and written for the humanist courts of Italian Renaissanceprinces. Most plays were closely based on the Roman New Comedyof Plautus and Terence and intended for educated audiences.Deconstruction a school of thought associated with the Frenchphilosopher Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction’s principal interest liesin unravelling the ‘metaphysics of presence’ that are said to authorizekey philosophical ideas and dominant discourses. Deconstructiveanalysis engages in a detailed reading of the ways in which conceptsare structured through language, an unstable and volatile medium,examining the extent to which the transcendental claims of such ideasare undermined by their existence within the medium.Drag generally a form of female impersonation, although drag can workfrom female to male, in which the fact that a man has dressed as awomen is a significant element of the entertainment and largelyresponsible for its humour. Drag differs from the transvestism of theShakespearean stage in this respect, as the drag act is not involved ina narrative that requires crossdressing, and, even though no directreference is made to the actual gender of the performer, the audiencederives amusement from their knowledge that the woman is, in fact, aman.Farce a form of comedy that relies principally on physical humour,horseplay, and awkward social situations to generate laughter. Theorigins of farce can be traced back as far as the ancient Romanfabula, the generic name for a variety of comic entertainments, andthe form was particularly popular in France in the Middle Ages. In thenineteenth century, one-act farces often accompanied the performanceof five-act tragedies. In modern usage, the term is generally applied tocomedies that feature a series of contorted and overlapping intrigues,such as a series of adulterous couples in close quarters and in imminentdanger of being found out.Historicism a critical practice that claims that one only understands thenature of a literary or other creative work fully when it is returned tothe original context of its production. Historicist readings of comedy,