COMEDY is a form of dramatic literature designed to amuse and often to correct or instruct through ridicule. It generally ends happily. To achieve its effects, it exposes incongruity, absurdity, and foolishness, and its treatment of characters frequently has elements of exaggeration and caricature.

喜剧是用来逗乐，常常通过嘲笑来纠正或说明的一种戏剧文学形式。通常结局是快乐的。为达到其效果，它揭露不协调、荒谬和愚蠢，而且它对人物的处理通常具有夸张和讽刺的元素。

Like tragedy, comedy grew out of early Greek religious festivals honoring the god Dionysus, in which joyful tribute was paid to the natural world. Traces of ritual elements still existed in the comedies of Aristophanes (about 400 B. C.), the greatest Greek writer of comedy, who added to the form the element of satire of men and institutions. The Greek Menander, followed by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence, devised the “New Comedy,” using stock characters to exploit life’s absurdities.

像悲剧一样，喜剧也源于早期希腊向狄俄尼索斯神致敬的宗教节日，其中，对自然界给予了喜悦的颂辞。仪式元素的痕迹依然存在于阿里斯多芬尼斯的喜剧中（公元前大约400年），最大伟大的希腊喜剧作家，他将这一形式加入到对人和制度讽刺的元素中。希腊的米南德，然后是罗马剧作家普劳图斯和特伦斯，设计出“新喜剧”，用刻板角色发掘生活的荒谬。

Since the Renaissance, comedy has taken many forms in Western literature; the artifice of the Italian commedia dell’arte; the broad humor of Moliere and the English Elizabethans; the Restoration comedies of manners; the genial realism of Goldoni; the intricate high comedy of Chekhov; the witty farces of Oscar Wilde; and the comedies of ideas of George Bernard Shaw.

自文艺复兴以来，喜剧在西方文学中有多种形式；意大利的《即兴喜剧》技巧；莫里哀和英国伊丽莎白时期的粗俗幽默；复辟时期的礼仪喜剧；哥尔多尼和蔼的现实主义；契诃夫错综复杂的高级喜剧；奥斯卡·王尔德的诙谐闹剧；以及乔治·萧伯纳的观念喜剧。

                                       C. HUGH HOLMAN

                             Coauthor of “ A Handbook to Literature”

                                        C. 休·霍尔曼

                                    “文学手册”的合著者

                                                                     2023年9月18日译

（译者注：该词条位列《大美百科全书》1985年版，第7卷，第363页）