Divine Comedy

Dammit, I was gonna have steak today but now all I can think about is chicken wings.

How did the meaning of comedy change so much? And did they care less about spoilers back then? Because that type of classification seems like it could blow the ending of a story.

>Divine Comedy
>He thinks Comedy means it's funny
>Being this out of touch with old English and its connotations and definitions

back then people didn't care for spoilers, see greek tragedy, everyone already knew the plots

HOL UP

Wow you are so right! And you are so smart! You really pointed out what nobody else knew or realized AND you used good words in a good way, I mean "connotations" is a big word and you definitely used it right like there is no possibility that you used it wrong or like an idiot!

The meaning of "comedy" hasn't changed. It still means "a story with a happy ending." It just gained another denotation "of a story that is funny."

It had nothing to do with "old English" and everything to do with Latin and Greek. From his letters:

Libri titulus est: 'Incipit Comedia Dantis Alagherii, Florentini natione, non moribus'. Ad cuius notitiam sciendum est, quod comedia dicitur a 'comos', villa, et 'oda', quod est cantus, unde comedia quasi 'villanus cantus'. Et est comedia genus quoddam poetice narrationis, ab omnibus aliis differens. Differt ergo a tragedia, in materia per hoc, quod tragedia in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine seu exitu est fetida et horribilis; et dicitur propter hoc a 'tragos', quod est hircus, et oda, quasi 'cantus hircinus', idest fetidus ad modum hirci, ut patet per Senecam in suis tragediis. Comedia vero inchoat asperitatem alicuius rei, sed eius materia prospere terminatur, ut patet per Terentium in suis comediis. Et hinc consueverunt dictatores quidam in suis salutationibus dicere loco salutis, 'tragicum principium, et comicum finem'. Similiter differunt in modo loquendi: elate et sublime tragedia; comedia vero remisse et humiliter; sicut vult Oratius in sua Poetria, ubi licentiat aliquando comicos ut tragedos loqui, et sic e converso:

Interdum tamen et vocem comedia tollit,
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore;
Et tragicus plerunque dolet sermone pedestri
Telephus et Peleus etc.

Et per hoc patet, quod comedia dicitur presens opus. Nam si ad materiam respiciamus, a principio horribilis et fetida est, quia Infernus; in fine prospera, desiderabilis et grata, quia Paradisus; ad modum loquendi, remissus est modus et humilis, quia locutio vulgaris, in qua et muliercule communicant. Et sic patet quare Comedia dicitur. Sunt et alia genera narrationum poeticarum, scilicet carmen bucolicum, elegia, satira, et sententia votiva, ut etiam per Oratium patere potest in sua Poetria; sed de istis ad presens nihil dicendum est.

To sum it briefly he says that a Comedy is a type of poetry that begins in difficulty and ends in happiness, while Tragedy follows an opposite progression, and that Comedy is done in a humble every-day style, as Dante did by writing it in Italian.

Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" is also considered a comedy despite it not being very comical. What's a comedy and what's a tragedy is dependent on the ending not how bleak or funny it is in the middle.

>Great Expectations
>Not great

Hello? Are you serius? Why is this book so popular?
Dickens was a fucking idiot

>It's only funny after you get behind the 5 layers of metaphor.

change proxies for metaphors (:

Nigga stop peacocking about knowing some Latin.

I wish people still didn't care about spoilers because it's probably an incentive to write well rather than having Shamallama sort of writing.

Who's big dave?

>Divine Comedy
>old english
im being rused

Why post a shitty latin version instead of a direct translation, faggot? No-one cares if you can read it, it's pointless to cite something in a language that nobody in the thread is likely to be able to.

You're just trying to sound smarter than you are