THE FORMATION OF COMIC POETICS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA
Keywords:
comic poetics, English Renaissance drama, Renaissance comedy, Elizabethan theatre, Shakespearean comedy, Ben Jonson, genre evolution, diachronic analysis.Abstract
This article analyzes the formation of comic poetics in English literature within a diachronic framework from the classical period to Renaissance drama. The study is grounded in the theoretical approaches of Aristotle, Henri Bergson, and Northrop Frye. It demonstrates that comic elements in Old and Middle English literature developed through riddles and satirical forms. In English Renaissance drama, the aesthetic and social functions of the comic genre are identified, and the role of Elizabethan playhouses—The Globe, The Rose, and The Curtain—in the formation of professional theatrical culture is substantiated. In the comedies of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Middleton, love, identity, social hierarchy, and social criticism are analyzed as key thematic dimensions of comic poetics.
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