An Essay on comedy and the uses of the comic spirit

An Essay on Comedy, by George Meredith
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Title: An Essay on Comedy And the Uses of the Comic Spirit
Author: George Meredith Release Date: May 13, 2005 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) [eBook #1219]
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON COMEDY***
Transcribed from the 1897 Archibald Constable and Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
AN ESSAY ON COMEDY AND THE USES OF THE COMIC SPIRIT by George Meredith
This Essay was first published in ‘The New Quarterly Magazine’ for April 1877 .
ON THE IDEA OF COMEDY AND OF THE USES OF THE COMIC SPIRIT {1}
Good Comedies are such rare productions, that notwithstanding the wealth of our literature in the Comic element, it would not occupy us long to run over the English list. If they are brought to the test I shall propose, very reputable Comedies will be found unworthy of their station, like the ladies of Arthur’s Court when they were reduced to the ordeal of the mantle. There are plain reasons why the Comic poet is not a frequent apparition; and why the great Comic poet remains without a fellow. A society of cultivated men and women is ...