CALL FOR PAPERS - v. 35, n. 3 (2025): Comedy: from classics to modernity
CHAMADA ALETRIA - v. 35, n. 3 (jul. - set. 2025)
Organizers:
Elen de Medeiros (UFMG), Rodrigo Alves Nascimento (UFBA)
Deadline for submission of proposals: December 4, 2024.
Comedy: from classics to modernity
Both underestimated and difficult to grasp, comedy is a genre that has undergone historical transformations in its poetic constitution. Aristotle stated that comedy deals with the “imitation of inferior people” (p. 67), and several scholars have been analyzing the excerpt since. Many of them have taken it as the reason for a historical underestimation of the genre, but Cleise Furtado Mendes (2008, p. 49) observes in her study on the forms of comedy that “Aristotle cannot be considered the ‘origin’ of the critical demotion of which it was a victim”. After all, in Poetics itself, the philosopher argued that: “The successive changes through which tragedy passed, and the authors of these changes, are well known, whereas comedy has had no history because it was not at first treated seriously.” (p. 67). Actually, in drama theory, studies dedicated to comedy are scarce and uneven, even though dramaturgical production is fruitful and always present. It is not surprising that many historians and theater critics would not hesitate to say that comedy of manners was undoubtedly the most flourishing genre in Brazil in the 19th century and played a decisive role in the origins of what was called “Brazilian national dramaturgy.”
On the other hand, investigations on comedy and laughter are no less complex, and perhaps only in the last two centuries, they have become objects of interest in very different fields, such as medicine, anthropology, history, and philosophy. Overall, although many insist on the search for universal rules, the fact is that comicality and the meanings of laughter cannot handled regardless of contextualization and social dimension.
In this sense, we invite researchers to think about comedy and comicality both in their tradition and in the light of modern and contemporary transformations. Perhaps even more than tragedy or “serious dramas”, comedy has benefited from rich changes and adaptations throughout history, producing a broad tradition of subgenres: high and low comedy, burlesque, comedy of characters, of manners, cloak and sword comedy, heroic and melodramatic comedies... or even: farces, vaudevilles, and tragicomedies. Therefore, papers that address the genre in its formal constitution or merged by other dramaturgical patterns, from Brechtian epic theater to slapstick comedy, or papers that seek to understand different theatrical comic texts, will be accepted. Aletria also receives texts in a continuous flow, for the “Varia” section, interviews, and reviews.
References:
ARISTÓTELES. Poética. Edição bilingue. Tradução, introdução e notas de Paulo Pinheiro. São Paulo: Ed. 34, 2015.
MENDES, Cleise Furtado. A gargalhada de Ulisses: a catarse na comédia. São Paulo: Perspectiva/Salvador: Fundação Gregório de Mattos, 2008.
Comedy: from classics to modernity
Both underestimated and difficult to grasp, comedy is a genre that has undergone historical transformations in its poetic constitution. Aristotle stated that comedy deals with the “imitation of inferior people” (p. 67), and several scholars have been analyzing the excerpt since. Many of them have taken it as the reason for a historical underestimation of the genre, but Cleise Furtado Mendes (2008, p. 49) observes in her study on the forms of comedy that “Aristotle cannot be considered the ‘origin’ of the critical demotion of which it was a victim”. After all, in Poetics itself, the philosopher argued that: “The successive changes through which tragedy passed, and the authors of these changes, are well known, whereas comedy has had no history because it was not at first treated seriously.” (p. 67). Actually, in drama theory, studies dedicated to comedy are scarce and uneven, even though dramaturgical production is fruitful and always present. It is not surprising that many historians and theater critics would not hesitate to say that comedy of manners was undoubtedly the most flourishing genre in Brazil in the 19th century and played a decisive role in the origins of what was called “Brazilian national dramaturgy.”
On the other hand, investigations on comedy and laughter are no less complex, and perhaps only in the last two centuries, they have become objects of interest in very different fields, such as medicine, anthropology, history, and philosophy. Overall, although many insist on the search for universal rules, the fact is that comicality and the meanings of laughter cannot handled regardless of contextualization and social dimension.
In this sense, we invite researchers to think about comedy and comicality both in their tradition and in the light of modern and contemporary transformations. Perhaps even more than tragedy or “serious dramas”, comedy has benefited from rich changes and adaptations throughout history, producing a broad tradition of subgenres: high and low comedy, burlesque, comedy of characters, of manners, cloak and sword comedy, heroic and melodramatic comedies... or even: farces, vaudevilles, and tragicomedies. Therefore, papers that address the genre in its formal constitution or merged by other dramaturgical patterns, from Brechtian epic theater to slapstick comedy, or papers that seek to understand different theatrical comic texts, will be accepted. Aletria also receives texts in a continuous flow, for the “Varia” section, interviews, and reviews.
References:
ARISTÓTELES. Poética. Edição bilingue. Tradução, introdução e notas de Paulo Pinheiro. São Paulo: Ed. 34, 2015.
MENDES, Cleise Furtado. A gargalhada de Ulisses: a catarse na comédia. São Paulo: Perspectiva/Salvador: Fundação Gregório de Mattos, 2008.
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