[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-318043-105":3,"doc-detail-318043-en":80,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":97},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":73,"head_meta":75,"extra_data":77,"updated_unix":79},105,"en","an-essay-on-comedy-george-meredith","An Essay on Comedy - George Meredith","","An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit by George Meredith examines what makes good comedies rare and difficult to produce. It argues that a cultivated society, quick perceptions, and sufficient intellectual activity are required to supply the comic poet with both material and an audience. Meredith emphasizes the subtle delicacy needed to touch the mind through laughter, distinguishes non-laughers and excessive laughers, and discusses how comedy’s social and moral reception can vary with stage and cultural conditions.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/","Literature",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/an-essay-on-comedy-george-meredith/318043/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/an-essay-on-comedy-george-meredith/318043.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Lucas Martin","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-22","2026-09-20",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":22},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"Why does Meredith say good comedies are so rare?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"He claims cultivated social conditions are needed—ideas must be current, perceptions quick, and the audience intellectually active to provide both matter and receptivity.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"What qualities must the comic poet have to succeed?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"Meredith argues that beyond sprightliness, the poet needs subtle delicacy as a kind of natural gift, along with an acuteness that can both penetrate and be welcomed by the audience.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"How does Meredith distinguish types of people who do not properly respond to comedy?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"He describes agelasts (non-laughers) who do not bleed when pricked, and hypergelasts (excessive laughers) who laugh loosely at everything and may misunderstand the comic of comedy.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},318043,1790055968,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",{"doc_id":78,"user_id":83,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":84,"doc_module":4,"category_id":26,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":85,"file_id":86,"file_url":87,"file_type":88,"file_size":89,"view_count":22,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":90,"language":91,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":92,"faqs":93,"seo_title":94,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":95,"read_time":96},8796095360427,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","An Essay on Comedy, by George Meredith  \nThe Project Gutenberg eBook, An Essay on Comedy, by George Meredith  \nThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever . You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at [www.gutenberg.org](www.gutenberg.org)  \n[Title: An Essay on Comedy](Title: An Essay on Comedy)  \nAnd the Uses of the Comic Spirit  \nAuthor: George Meredith  \nRelease Date: May 13, 2005 [eBook \\#1219]  \nLanguage: English  \nCharacter set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)  \n***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON COMEDY***  \nTranscribed from the 1897 Archibald Constable and Company edition by David Price, email [ccx074@coventry.ac.uk](ccx074@coventry.ac.uk)  \nAN ESSAY ON COMEDY AND THE USES OF THE COMIC  \nSPIRIT by George Meredith  \nThis Essay was first published in ‘The New Quarterly Magazine’for April 1877.  \nON THE IDEA OF COMEDY AND OF THE USES OF THE COMIC SPIRIT {1}  \nGood 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.  \nThere 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 required, wherein ideas are current and the perceptions quick, that he may be supplied with matter and an audience. The semi-barbarism of merely giddy communities, and feverish emotional periods, repel him; and also a state of marked social inequality of the sexes; nor can he whose business is to address the mind be understood where thereis not a moderate degree of intellectual activity.  \nMoreover, to touch and kindle the mind through laughter, demands more than sprightliness, a most subtle delicacy. That must be a natal gift in the Comic poet. The substance he deals with will show him a startling exhibition of the dyer ’s hand, ifhe is without it. People are ready to surrender themselves to witty thumps on the back, breast, and sides; all except the head: and it is there that he aims. He must be subtle to penetrate. A corresponding acuteness must exist to welcome him. The necessity for the two conditions will explain how it is that we count him during centuries in the singular number.  \n‘C’est une étrange entreprise que celle de faire rire les honnêtes gens,’Molière says; and the difficulty of the undertaking cannot be overestimated.  \nThen again, he is beset with foes to right and left, of a character unknown to the tragic and the lyric poet, or even to philosophers.  \nWe have in this world men whom Rabelais would call agelasts; that is to say, non-laughers; men who are in that respect as dead bodies, which if you prick them do not bleed. The old grey boulder-stone that has finished its peregrination from the rock to the valley, is as easily to be set rolling up again as these men laughing. No collision of circumstances in our mortal career strikes a light for them. It is but one step from being agelastic tomisogelastic, and the μισοyελως, the laughter-hating, soon learns to dignify his dislike as an objection in morality.  \nWe have another class of men, who are pleased to consider themselves antagonists ofthe foregoing, and whom we may term hypergelasts; the excessive laughers, ever-laughing, who are as clappers of a bell, that maybe rung by a breeze, a grimace; who are so loosely put together that a wink will shake them.  \n‘. . . C’est n’estimer rien qu’estioner tout le monde,’  \nand to laugh at everything is to have no appreciation of the Comic of Comedy.  \nNeither of these distinct divisions of non-laughers and over-laughers would be entertained by reading The Rape of the Lo","cbCaiqGp4XmPulyT","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiqGp4XmPulyT","pdf",534264,52,"English","# On the Idea of Comedy and of the Uses of the Comic Spirit","[{\"question\":\"Why does Meredith say good comedies are so rare?\",\"answer\":\"He claims cultivated social conditions are needed—ideas must be current, perceptions quick, and the audience intellectually active to provide both matter and receptivity.\"},{\"question\":\"What qualities must the comic poet have to succeed?\",\"answer\":\"Meredith argues that beyond sprightliness, the poet needs subtle delicacy as a kind of natural gift, along with an acuteness that can both penetrate and be welcomed by the audience.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Meredith distinguish types of people who do not properly respond to comedy?\",\"answer\":\"He describes agelasts (non-laughers) who do not bleed when pricked, and hypergelasts (excessive laughers) who laugh loosely at everything and may misunderstand the comic of comedy.\"}]","An Essay on Comedy - George Meredith | PDF",1789939374,80,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":98},[99,103,105,109,114,119,124,129,134,137,141],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":104},"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":120,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":130,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":131,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":133},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":135,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":136},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":138,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":139,"show_sort_weight":138,"slug":140},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":142,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":143,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":144},19,"General","general"]