comic liturgy

[barbara wolf <lupa@biddeford.com>]

I don't remember who started the mini-thread or why, but perhaps the notion
of the Mass as comedy comes from the structural characteristics of
comedy/tragedy.
Shakespeare provides good examples (but Greek trags and coms are the
cleanest types):

Trag begins with order, both personal and social.  In WS, usually with feast
or celebration.  Under the order are unacknowledged, untreated
divisions--these two forces are explored in ACT I.  The powerful emergence
of divisions (personal and social) emerge in the development of action--the
old order trying harder and harder to contain disorder, the divisions
becoming stronger and stronger.  (Think of Lear: begins with retirement
party, and by ACT IV Lear himself has been torn to bits.)  In the final act,
the old order has collapsed (and so, usually has the hero).  But always at
the end there is a vision of a new order.
No time or space for examples of all this, but there are Fortinbras on the
scene at Elsinore, Edgar in *Lear*, and so forth.

In comedy, things begin with division rather than order. In WS, for
instance, twins separated, lovers at odds or arbitrarily kept apart,
rightful rulers dispossessed, a society burdened by unkeepable law or
unreasonable expectations, etc. (*Tempest*, *AYLI*, *12th N* all are good
ex.) Usually a lot of moaning and groaning, which is the subject of audience
laughter because (presumably) the audience knows that things in a drama
never stay as they are in the beginning--four acts (or whatever) to go.  So
there is an implicit understanding that things will get better.  And they
do. The focus is not on a Hero (as representative of humanity) but on the
community. Individuals in comedy act out the roles of the various burdened
aspects of society (love, family, justice, etc.).  The action exposes
tyranny, hypocrisy, greed, etc., for what they are.  The Bad Guys, who have
been oppressing Life, are put down, either exiled or made to
relent--although sometimes they repent.  In any event, comedies tend to end
with feasts and celebrations--in *Tempest* return to the real world, with a
new order.

So one could make a very good case for the Mass (whatever the name we give
it) as having a comic structure: it begins with us as divided (separated,
both within ourselves and from God and each other); it gradually exposes the
ramifications of those divisions; it "reenacts" the gift of a new order in
which divisions are healed; and it concludes with feast and thanksgiving.

This is only the briefest of sketches, but it's a long time since I taught
all this to ENG 210 students of Shakespeare!  Hope it helps.

Barbara Wolf