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Comedy and Tragedy as Two Sides of the Same Coin: Reversal and Incongruity as Sources of Insight
- The Journal of Aesthetic Education
- University of Illinois Press
- Volume 52, Number 2, Summer 2018
- pp. 81-94
- Article
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Abstract:
It has long been maintained that comedy cannot prove a source of insight, as tragedy can. Philosophical and other investigations into humor have challenged this assumption, underlining not simply the enjoyment afforded by comedy but also its role as an authentic counterpart of tragedy, capable of generating equally important insights and capable of canvassing equally significant issues. Comedy and tragedy draw on similar sources and achieve the effects that they do via similar methods. Although discussions of incongruity are more typically found in various ventures into humor theory, our claim in this paper is that one of the decisive links between tragedy and comedy is their reliance on incongruity. Incongruity theory is as relevant to tragedy as comedy, as any familiar with Aristotelian claims about reversal is sure to stress.