City Comedies

Ripe Good Scholar

Welcome to episode 34 of Ripe Good Scholar: City Comedies.

In this episode, Eli and I will be discussing one of the most popular play genres of Shakespeare’s time, the city comedy. While the precise definition is difficult, the basic definition is a play which focuses on the day to day happenings of the middle class. Common topics were sex and money. The comedy also tended to be on the raunchier or bawdier side. It’s like if you took all of the most hilarious scenes in Shakespeare’s plays and put them into one play. Because the plays focus on everyday people and everyday occurrences (more or less) they are able to poke fun at the ridiculousness of everyday life. It’s what makes them enjoyable long after they were written.

Although the genre was popular at the time, Shakespeare only penned one: The Merry Wives of Windsor. Merry Wives relies on a few of the common tropes seen in city comedies, which is what makes it an excellent study of the subgenre. Today, Eli and I will be looking at city comedies and what makes Merry Wives an excellent one.

For this episode, I relied primarily on Citizen Comedy in the Age of Shakespeare by Alexander Leggatt.

For the full show notes go to ripegoodscholar.com/ep34

Teller of Tales by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4467-teller-of-the-tales

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Minstrel Guild by KevinMacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4056-minstrel-guild

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/