ATragicomedy is a story that is both atragedy and acomedy at the same time.
Plautus invented the word Tragicomedy for hisplayAmphytrion. In itMercury notices that there are gods in a play that’s supposed to be a comedy and says that it should be a tragicomedy instead.
InItaly, a man namedGiovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio said that people should write tragedies with happy endings. He called them “Tragicomedies”. He said tragedies were better as books but tragicomedies were better as plays. In 1590,Giovanni Battista Guarini wrote a play called The Faithful Shepherd. People weren’t sure if it were a comedy or a tragedy, so they called it a tragicomedy.
Some people criticizedWilliam Shakespeare for puttingjokes in tragedies and sad things in comedies. So they said that some of his plays were not tragedies or comedies. They called them tragicomedies.
