ENGL 2P82 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Elizabethan Era, Protestantism, Shakespearean Comedy
13 Sep 2016
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It illustrates the extent to which comedy depends upon the shared social ideals and values of its audience on what we call ideology. Ethnic and racist jokes would provide similar modern examples, to be funny rather than offensive depends on the listener having the same assumptions about a certain group of people like the teller. It is safe to say that most contemporary audiences do not share this set of assumptions, at least not to the extent that they would leave this play undisturbed. Assumptions about women that shakespeare could expect an early modern audience to come to the theater with, assumptions that were woven into their lives in a concrete manner. A festive scene restoring social harmony after a period of social conflict. To speak very generally, this is the trajectory of shakespearean comedies social conflict to social comedy.
