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Tragedy and Comedy
A superb critical study of tragedy and comedy from their sources, masks, meanings is examined by New York Times drama critic, Walter Kerr.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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259 people want to read
About the author
Walter Kerr
80 books9 followersWalter Francis Kerr was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was a writer, lyricist, and director of several Broadway musicals.
He became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951, then began writing theater reviews for the New York Times in 1966. He wrote for the New York Times for seventeen years. Kerr won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1978.
In 1990, the old Ritz theater on West 48th Street was renamed the Walter Kerr Theatre in his honor.
Kerr's books include:
• How Not to Write a Play (1955)
• Criticism and Censorship (1957)
• Pieces at Eight (1958)
• The Decline of Pleasure (1962)
• The Theatre in Spite of Itself (1963)
• Tragedy and Comedy (1967)
• Thirty Plays Hath November (1969)
• God on the Gymnasium Floor (1971)
• The Silent Clowns (1975)
His wife, Jean Kerr, was also a writer. Together, they wrote the musical Goldilocks (1958), which won two Tony Awards. They also collaborated on Touch and Go (1949) and King of Hearts (1954). It must be said that Kerr did not have much of an ear for music, as many of the shows he panned over his long career included the musically ambitious shows of Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein's comic opera Candide and musically ambitious West Side Story, and Frank Loesser's "musical with a lot of music" [sic. opera], The Most Happy Fella.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
He became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951, then began writing theater reviews for the New York Times in 1966. He wrote for the New York Times for seventeen years. Kerr won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1978.
In 1990, the old Ritz theater on West 48th Street was renamed the Walter Kerr Theatre in his honor.
Kerr's books include:
• How Not to Write a Play (1955)
• Criticism and Censorship (1957)
• Pieces at Eight (1958)
• The Decline of Pleasure (1962)
• The Theatre in Spite of Itself (1963)
• Tragedy and Comedy (1967)
• Thirty Plays Hath November (1969)
• God on the Gymnasium Floor (1971)
• The Silent Clowns (1975)
His wife, Jean Kerr, was also a writer. Together, they wrote the musical Goldilocks (1958), which won two Tony Awards. They also collaborated on Touch and Go (1949) and King of Hearts (1954). It must be said that Kerr did not have much of an ear for music, as many of the shows he panned over his long career included the musically ambitious shows of Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein's comic opera Candide and musically ambitious West Side Story, and Frank Loesser's "musical with a lot of music" [sic. opera], The Most Happy Fella.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 3, 2015
Can't believe this is out of print--
I got this book back in my college days at the recommendation of Cornel West (I was fortunate enough to take his class on tragicomedy), and it does not disappoint. Kerr, an eminent drama critic of his day, vivisects comedy and tragedy with so much insight that I could not help underline SO many passages, all delivered in the old-school generalizing/ruminating tone that's irresistible for me. One e.g.:
His main argument is that tragedy is intertwined with comedy, or more specifically, that comedy is born of tragedy and hence secondary in the sense that the clown needs someone and something to make fun of. His argument is much more multifaceted and complex than that, but that's the nutshell.
To quickly illustrate comedy's reliance on tragedy, imagine an old lady in a wheel chai and send her spinning down a slope toward a stone wall. Funny?"[T]here is something terribly funny—something quite terribly funny—about the real old lady racing toward a wall... Dare we laugh? We want to. The impulse is there, dark, beckoning, conspiratorial. We are even aware that if we can laugh, the laughter will be deeper more centrally located, more candid. But see here, now. The old lady may be hurt. She may be killed. Comedy at is most penetrating derives from what we normally regard as tragic."
While he deploys his lyrically and philosophically pleasing argument, he corrects some misconceptions of the genres along the way. Hubris is one. He argues that tragedy isn't really about a hero falling from grace because of hubris or other tragic flaws (as is commonly understood in lit classes). In tragedy, the hero recklessly claims something divine and suffers, but in the end may be granted that divinity or achieve something equally good. Thus: "Arrogance, even hubris, may—after a searing period of transformation—end in sanctification, as it does with Oedipus."And the whole idea of "tragic flaw" is not borne out by the evidence at hand—it's substantiated only in Christian moral plays, but not so much in Greek or even some of Renaissance plays, such as Shakespeare's Othello or King Lear. If Othello's tragic flaw was that he was innately jealous, Kerr points out, then why did it take the malice-incarnate of Iago to drive him to his tragic act?
Or take the comic endings, and he nailed it with Molière's Tartuffe—a comedy I loved but felt flawed because of its deus-ex-machina ending. The artificiality and arbitrariness of the endings of many comedies, Kerr argues convincingly, is really a mockery of all happy endings. "The very fun that is in them resides in the fact that they are patently not true." Fixing the plot is easy, he claims, because "any hack, any amateur could do it—if he cared to. The obvious fact of the matter is that Molière, who possessed as much skill in plotting as any man who ever wrote comedy, is simply being cavalier." So it makes sense to assume that the artificial ending of Tartuffe was intentional and it was supposed to be preposterous.
There are many, many other insights in this book (such as the characteristics of comedy and how Chekhov's plays are not tragedies but comedies that make fun of the human intellect), and this is a must read for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of drama and its twin genres. If you can find it at the library or a used copy somewhere, I'd get it and see if this is you cup of tea.
I got this book back in my college days at the recommendation of Cornel West (I was fortunate enough to take his class on tragicomedy), and it does not disappoint. Kerr, an eminent drama critic of his day, vivisects comedy and tragedy with so much insight that I could not help underline SO many passages, all delivered in the old-school generalizing/ruminating tone that's irresistible for me. One e.g.:
His main argument is that tragedy is intertwined with comedy, or more specifically, that comedy is born of tragedy and hence secondary in the sense that the clown needs someone and something to make fun of. His argument is much more multifaceted and complex than that, but that's the nutshell.
To quickly illustrate comedy's reliance on tragedy, imagine an old lady in a wheel chai and send her spinning down a slope toward a stone wall. Funny?"[T]here is something terribly funny—something quite terribly funny—about the real old lady racing toward a wall... Dare we laugh? We want to. The impulse is there, dark, beckoning, conspiratorial. We are even aware that if we can laugh, the laughter will be deeper more centrally located, more candid. But see here, now. The old lady may be hurt. She may be killed. Comedy at is most penetrating derives from what we normally regard as tragic."
While he deploys his lyrically and philosophically pleasing argument, he corrects some misconceptions of the genres along the way. Hubris is one. He argues that tragedy isn't really about a hero falling from grace because of hubris or other tragic flaws (as is commonly understood in lit classes). In tragedy, the hero recklessly claims something divine and suffers, but in the end may be granted that divinity or achieve something equally good. Thus: "Arrogance, even hubris, may—after a searing period of transformation—end in sanctification, as it does with Oedipus."And the whole idea of "tragic flaw" is not borne out by the evidence at hand—it's substantiated only in Christian moral plays, but not so much in Greek or even some of Renaissance plays, such as Shakespeare's Othello or King Lear. If Othello's tragic flaw was that he was innately jealous, Kerr points out, then why did it take the malice-incarnate of Iago to drive him to his tragic act?
Or take the comic endings, and he nailed it with Molière's Tartuffe—a comedy I loved but felt flawed because of its deus-ex-machina ending. The artificiality and arbitrariness of the endings of many comedies, Kerr argues convincingly, is really a mockery of all happy endings. "The very fun that is in them resides in the fact that they are patently not true." Fixing the plot is easy, he claims, because "any hack, any amateur could do it—if he cared to. The obvious fact of the matter is that Molière, who possessed as much skill in plotting as any man who ever wrote comedy, is simply being cavalier." So it makes sense to assume that the artificial ending of Tartuffe was intentional and it was supposed to be preposterous.
There are many, many other insights in this book (such as the characteristics of comedy and how Chekhov's plays are not tragedies but comedies that make fun of the human intellect), and this is a must read for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of drama and its twin genres. If you can find it at the library or a used copy somewhere, I'd get it and see if this is you cup of tea.
September 21, 2025
This book is just plain astounding. Comedy and tragedy is not just entertainment- it is what we live, it is who we are.
Walter Kerr presents comedy and tragedy, not as abstractions or as a diversion, but at the fullest expression of who we are - and who we tell ourselves we are.
From the roots of the earliest staged performances, people have reached, pursued and mourned over the fragile beauty and brokeness of existence. This book is a portrayal of that journey...
Walter Kerr presents comedy and tragedy, not as abstractions or as a diversion, but at the fullest expression of who we are - and who we tell ourselves we are.
From the roots of the earliest staged performances, people have reached, pursued and mourned over the fragile beauty and brokeness of existence. This book is a portrayal of that journey...
October 15, 2024
I will probably be reevaluating what I think is funny forever now.
April 16, 2014
Please...If I ever say I'm going to read another book which examines comedy, please slap it from my hands. I've tried at least 3, and this is the worst. Reading a book on comedy written by a drama critic is like learning to play piano from a drummer. Trying to dissect why something is humorous is like trying to explain why the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece by describing her smile, the colors of the paints and the directions of the brush strokes. I'm out of similes.
Make them stop.
Make them stop.
Want to read
October 12, 2013David's book - get from him.
May 30, 2021
5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews