Comedy

Comedy took on a different view with the advent of the Christian era. The comic genre was divided by Dante in his work The Divine Comedy, made up of the epic poems Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Dante's division of comedy into three sub genres still exist today in various forms. Inferno represents the darkest of all comedies, or what is known as dark or black comedy. In such comedy, one is forced to laugh or enjoy dark or black topics that one shouldn't enjoy or laugh at. Generally, most who read the whole Divine Comedy find the Inferno to be the most enjoyable of the three. At the end of the dark comedy, one is still left with a sense of hope but one has not necessarily achieved what one has looked for. Purgatorio is made up of what most comedies today possess. Purgatorio is light hearted, at least compared to Inferno, and yet one still does not achieve fully what one looks for. As such, Purgatorio leaves the main character with a sense of hope greater than what was felt at the end of Inferno. Paradiso is the most traditional of the three in way of the Greek standard of comedy. The supernatural play a huge role in all three poems, but Paradiso ends the happiest of all three with the main character achieving his goal. Infernal, Purgatorial and Paradisal comedies are the three main genres in which one can place all other comic forms