The catastrophe of the good ending

pp. 93-110

in: Dmitri Nikulin, Comedy, seriously, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

The epilogue is the "catastrophe" of comedy. A seemingly oxymoronic catastrophic good ending is a most important defining characteristic of comedy, resting on the principle "all's well that ends well," which was formulated by New Comedy long before Shakespeare. We need to clarify, therefore, the meaning of good and ending.