A comedy with a tragic potential is called the tragicomedy. It begins with a tragic note. The hero fifers for the wrongs done to him. The wrongdoer may act like a villain. But he does not meet with any given. He is, somehow, reformed and the would-be tragedy ends as a comedy. The end brings out aching in the sinner while suffering of the hero is replaced by happiness.
The tragicomedy was not a dramatic form of the Greeks. They had no idea of mixing tragedy with med, for it flouts the classical principle of the unity of action. As the English comedy is romantic, ft developed this form under Italian and French influence. A King and No King by Beaumont and etcher introduced the tragic-comedy in England.
But it was criticized as a mongrel by Sidney as it is neither ether tragedy nor comedy. Milton too criticized it in his preface to Samson Agonists. To Addison it is one of the monstrous inventions.’ But Dryden praises the English genius for giving this form to the English stage. Dr. Johnson finds no impropriety in this form. He justifies it as life itself is neither a “giddy nor a comedy. It is a mixture of pain and pleasure. Nicolle too finds no incongruity in the form.
Shakespeare handled the form with supreme mastery in his comedies such as You like It and much Ado about Nothing which begin on a tragic note. When the wrongs done to the main characters re undone, they turn into comedies. The romances written by Shakespeare at the end of his career peerage-comedies. They are Cymbeline, winter’s Tale and The Tempest. A final twist turns a grim giddy into a lively comedy at the end.