Fall Course 09: Humanities 101/210 “‘The Mirror of Custom’: Comedy and the Arts of Living in Society"

Instructors: Kathryn Bosher (Classics), Thomas Simpson (French & Italian), William N. West (English, Classics, and Comparative Studies)

Kathryn Bosher
Professor Bosher studies the social context, the production, and the reception of ancient theater, both in the classical world and in later periods. At present, she is working on the history of early Greek theatre in Sicily. She is an affiliate of the Classical Traditions Initiative and a member of the associate faculty of the Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Theatre and Drama.

Thomas Simpson
Professor Simpson studies Italian theatre and other forms of performance and spectacle. He is currently studying a scandalous 19th century trial in Rome that became the young nation of Italy’s first giant media circus event. Simpson is Associate Director of the WCAS Drama Major.

William N. West
Professor West studies, teaches, and thinks about early modern drama, poetry, and prose.  He is working on a book on the experiences of early modern English playing and playgoing, to be called Understanding and Confusion in the Elizabethan Theaters, as well as a project on the history of imagining the Renaissance.  He is Director of the Drama Major.

Commedia dell'Arte Mask

“Comedy,” wrote one ancient critic, in a definition that would continue to echo and change to the present moment, “is the imitation of life, the mirror of custom, and the image of truth.”  With these words, he suggested that comedy conveys a uniquely human truth by imitating both the life of the individual and the customs of the community within which it was preserved and pursued.  For comedies do not just mirror the forms and ideals of the societies that produce them; instead, they show ways of living within those norms and structures, of reforming them where they fall short and of accommodating oneself to them where one can.  Ancient comedies frequently began with a pair of young lovers who were kept apart by their parents’ well-intentioned desire for them to find somebody else, worked through the schemes the lovers invented to outwit their elders, and ended with the marriage of the young and their reconciliation with the old.  While this general template has of course changed greatly, comedies continue to explore the conflicts that occur between the different aims of people, and the ways they adapt to the lives of others and learn to live with them, in works as varied in time and culture as those of Jerry Seinfeld and Dante.  Comedies concern the many ways of growth, not the single ending in destruction; maturation, adaptation, innovation, and change rather than stasis.  Comedy is an art of survival.