William Shakespeare is no stranger to bending and breaking convention. Hailed as an inventor of words from "elbow" to "stealth" and a master playwright who created some of the most enduring narrative structures, such as that of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's legacy is the result of his inexhaustible creativity. It is this reluctance to follow the classification of “tragedy” too strictly that allowed him to incorporate elements of comedy into one of his most tragic plays, King Lear. Although moments of laughter are relatively difficult to find in his 17th-century play, there are undeniable comic elements incorporated into Shakespeare's tragedy. In blurring the lines between the tragic and the comic, critics have argued for centuries that Shakespeare perhaps overstepped his bounds by mixing two fundamentally incompatible genres. But the opposite is true; King Lear requires elements of comedy to be successful in both its literary and entertainment roles. The importance of comedy in King Lear can be seen most clearly in its role as relief, its position as a way of dealing with tragedy, and finally in its strategy of subtle criticism throughout the play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Comic relief is perhaps one of the most common uses of comedy in entertainment, from Shakespeare's time to today. Google defines comic relief as “comic episodes in a dramatic or literary work that offset more serious sections” (Google). When the play's plot threatens to become too distressing for viewers, an element of comedy is added to lighten the mood before diving back into tragedy. The character most responsible for this comic counterpart in King Lear is undoubtedly the Fool, whose particularly carefree attitude is attributed to his foolishness. Unburdened by the trauma that King Lear struggles with throughout the narrative, the Fool has the unique ability in the entire play to induce laughter in the face of tragedy. It is in Lear's frustration at having disowned his favorite daughter, Cordelia, that the Fool is first introduced. Lear and Kent are discussing the afternoon's events when the Fool enters and states that the two men of the nobility have much to learn from him, saying "[s]irrah, I will teach you a speech" (Shakespeare 1.4.112). This seems absurd given the Fool's apparent stupidity compared to the supposedly educated nobility, Lear and Kent. The Fool continues, introducing his song to rhyme with "[m]ark it, core" (1.4.114), recalling the confidence of a rapper facing his opponent in a cipher, as if his little ditty were the thing deeper or more poetic. never written. Of course it isn't, but the Fool passionately sings his nonsense song anyway. Adding to the comic absurdity of the scene, the King finds the song intriguing rather than crazy, and continues his conversation with the Fool with vigor. Although the Fool may seem like a frivolous character, his comic presence is crucial to King Lear. His melodic interjections and light-hearted character help relieve the tragic pressure that persists throughout the work. This periodic relief allows the play to reach the lowest of lows, and in fact makes these lows seem even more tragic than the play that precedes it. For example, the Fool exercises his uncanny ability to lighten the mood in one of the most distressing moments of the play, when Lear is lost in his own madness and refuses to retreat indoors during the storm. After successfully convincing the former king to take refuge, the Fool ascends thestage in an equally comical and disturbing monologue. He begins his speech by saying, “[t]his is a brave night to calm a courtesan. I will say a prophecy before I go:” (III.2.80), which in the vernacular translates to “this would be a great night to sleep with a prostitute, but I will say this before I do that.” After such a dramatic scene, the audience would have reacted with gratitude to this amusing observation. This brief relief allows the Fool to delve deeper into his prophecy which essentially predicts the fall of Lear's kingdom at the end of this conflict. Without the Fool's comic interjection, perhaps his tragic prediction would seem overly dramatic, or make the show too depressing for a viewer to sit through on a night out. Temporarily alleviating the pressure of the tragedy, the Fool's warning has a heavier meaning than was told in the pre-existing tragedy. He concludes this speech with another comical remark, "[t]his prophecy that Merlin will make, for I live before his time" (III.3.96-97), meaning "this is something Merlin might say, so I'm early about the times to say it now.” The comic framing of his speech, a break from the tragedy of Lear's situation, allows the viewer to pay more attention to what the Fool has to say At first, his overconfidence intelligence is comical, and the audience is able to laugh once again at the Fool's absurdity. But ironically, the Fool is probably right in his prediction, and it is precisely his outsider status that allows him to play with. clarity on the dynamics of the conflict. If the framing of his speech had been as serious as the atmosphere of the scene in which it is placed, the viewer could have become distracted, thinking that he would not miss much information if he had not listened carefully to what he had to say. . . The Fool's precedent as a comedic character provides him with a unique focus that other characters are not afforded. His comedic tone and role as a provider of relief to an ever-depressing situation make his plot-sensitive comments more impactful than those of a character whose character is regularly serious and insightful. These elements of comic relief, while providing the audience with a well-deserved break from the tragedy that consumes King Lear, also highlight the larger role of comedy as a way of dealing with tragedy. It is a common experience when, faced with an unspeakable tragedy to which it is difficult to react, we resort to humor to manage the pain. Even if a situation wouldn't be considered funny under any other circumstance, when faced with overwhelming tragedy, sometimes the only response to keep from breaking down is to laugh. This is why, despite the pitiful nature of the situation, comedy can be found in Lear's madness. An example of this use of comedy can be seen in Act 1, when Lear has banished his closest allies, Kent and Cordelia, and is unaware that his other daughters and their accomplices are plotting against him. Here, Lear speaks with an accomplice of the evil sisters, Oswald, the steward of Goneril. LEAR: O, you, sir, you! Come here, sir. Who am I, sir? OSVALDO: My lady's father. LEAR: “My lady's father”? My lord's scoundrel, dog son of a bitch, slave, bastard! OSWALD: I am none of these, my lord; I apologize. LEAR: Do you look at me wrong, you scoundrel? [Strikes him] OSVALDO: I will not be struck, my lord. KENT: And not even trip me, you vile football player. [Trips on heels] (I.4.77-85). In this scene, the nobles mock the steward after he fails to recognize Lear correctly, taking satisfactionif not amusement from his discomfort. When Oswald refers to Lear as his lady's father rather than the former king, this is deeply offensive to the insecure king. He is no longer powerful in himself, but his power comes from that of his daughters. This loss of recognition, the fall of his power, is one of the greatest catalysts for Lear's fall into madness. This is not to mention his daughter's almost immediate defiance of him once he puts her will into action, making Lear more sensitive to this disrespect from his daughter's steward. To endure this affront, Lear first ends up insulting Oswald, accusing him of disgusting insults. But when Kent joins, the provocation takes on the identity as a kind of game, fun for the men and the audience. Faced with misfortune, the two men resort to comedy, unfortunately derived from the insult, to cope with the difficulty of the situation. The use of humor as a method of dealing with tragedy is also used by the audience and not just the characters. When a scene is so inconceivably sad, to the point that it is impossible for the play to recover from such a misfortune, the only reaction left is to laugh. A scene that only portrays the deepening of tragedy might seem funny when the play has reached a point of irreversible desperation. The best example of this occurs at the very end of the play, when nearly all of the characters have died in a wide variety of gruesome ways. Standing among the corpses, among the last three survivors of the play's tragic finale, the Duke of Albany says simply "Our present task / Is a general trouble" (V.3.324-5). This line, while reflecting the truly heartbreaking tone of the scene, also feels comically redundant. Despite the tragic nature of this conclusion, it is not a shocking reaction to smile when reading or hearing this sentence. Albany's observation is blatantly obvious, so obvious that the fact that he points it out seems absurd, enough to be interpreted comically. The Duke's clear statement about the "business" of the scene, in its potentially comical redundancy, draws attention to the viewer's natural reaction to laugh when tears do not seem to be enough. It is this slight break in tension caused by this line that allows the viewer to leave the theater feeling sad but somehow satisfied with the entire plot. It works to free the viewer from the inevitable hold that tragedy has without diminishing the impact of the ending. The comic reaction induced by this joke provides the viewer with a way to cope with the end of the play, just as the characters in the play use laughter as a way to cope with their tragedy. Given the tragic nature of the play, the use of comedy in the tragedy plays an important role in calling attention to the overall absurdity of the situation that arises from the character's obsession with noble or powerful status. Humor is a common tool for expressing cultural criticism. In the case of King Lear, Shakespeare subtly expresses his concerns about culture and the consequences of nobility through humorous circumstances. Many of the laugh-inducing scenarios arise from some cultural misunderstanding, be it the Fool's ability to ignore social norms or Lear's madness expressing itself through his mockery of the circumstances associated with nobility. In the sixth scene of the third act, Lear, the Fool and Edgar disguised as Tom of Bedlam hold a trial for the evil sisters Regan and Goneril. The two sisters, who are hatching some evil plan, are not present in reality, but are figments of the former king's imagination. In their absence, King addresses his own.