On Saturday I moderated a panel on “The Comic Imagination” at New York’s Philoctetes Center. Panelists included Lewis Black, Jim Holt, Bruce McCall, and Tami Sagher. I’ll write more about the panel in my next post (after, as the refs say, a review of the tape) — but I wanted to first post a few thoughts on spring and comedy.
In Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, Northrop Frye proposes correspondences between the literary genres (or, if you prefer, the archetypal narratives) and the seasons. Romance is assigned to summer, tragedy to fall, satire to winter, and comedy to spring. It all makes wonderful sense: summer is the season of road trips and romance, of dragon- and skirt-chasing. In fall, we watch the leaves drop — or we would, if we hadn’t already gouged out our eyes (after, you know, sleeping with our mother, and worse). The chilly satire of winter serves to clear away the fallen brush (or Bush?), preparing the way for springtime, for comedy. And with comedy comes a spirit of renewal, of hope. It’s the time of roses and tulips.
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