During the Jacobean period, plays were extremely popular. One of the reasons for its popularity was that different genres were used to make the plays interesting to the audience. These genres included comedy, tragedy, romance, history, etc.
Jacobean Comedy Plays
Comedy plays were also famous by the name of City Comedy. Comedies were nothing but a satire which portrayed the life in the busy city of London. Ben Jonson was well-known for his comedy plays. His earliest work includes plays like ‘Every Man Out of his Humour’.
He also wrote other comedy plays titled ‘Epicone’ and ‘Volpone’. Thomas Middleton also wrote famous comedy plays like ‘A Trick To Catch the Old One‘ and ‘A Chaste Maid in Cheapside‘. Apart from Thomas Middleton, William Shakespeare was a successful playwright who produced comedy and tragedy. During the initial few years of his career, Fletcher wrote ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’, one of the finest piece of comedy of those times in collaboration with Francis Beaumont.
Jacobean Comedy
Along with pure comedy which had elements of satire and humor, another kind of comedy plays were written during this period. These were known as ‘Tragicomedy’. In this type of a play, both elements like tragedy and comedy were included. One of the best examples of this type of plays was ‘The Winter’s Tale’. Of the many playwrights of that time, William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton can be said to be the playwrights who were successful not only in writing comedy, but also tragedy.
More Info On- Jacobean Theatre, Plays, Audience, Playwrights
