在古典戏剧理论中,喜剧理论远不如悲剧理论那么充实。亚里士多德的《诗学》基本上是议论悲剧的,关于喜剧,他只说了一句极有影响的话——“喜剧是对于比较坏的人的摹仿。”这显然是作为与对于比较好的人的摹仿的悲剧的对照而提出来的。与悲剧对照着给喜剧下定义,这几乎成了历代喜剧研究的一个通用的方法。除了亚里士多德的“对于比较坏的人的摹仿”以外,至少还有这样一些与悲剧相对应地界定喜剧体裁的著名论断: 比如,黑格尔认为戏剧作品有两个构成因素——客观的历史必然性和人的主观意志。根据黑格尔的见解,在悲剧作品中占上风的是客观的必然性,而在喜剧作品中则恰好相反,它表现为人的主观意志的张扬。再如,莱辛在《汉堡剧评》中表示同意英国学者 In classical theater theory, the theory of comedy is far less fulfilling than the theory of tragedy. Aristotle’s “Poetics” is basically talking about tragedies, and on comedies he only uttered a very influential remark - “comedies are the imitations of the worse.” This is apparently as compared with the comparison Good man’s imitation of the tragedy put forward. In contrast to tragedy, which defines comedies, it has become almost a universal method of studying comedies of all ages. In addition to Aristotle’s “Mimics for the Worst,” there is at least some well-known assertion that defines the genre of comedy in correspondence with the tragedy: for example, Hegel sees two components of the drama - Objective Historical Necessity and Human Subjective Will. According to Hegel’s opinion, it is an objective inevitability to prevail in the tragedy works. In the comedy works, on the contrary, it manifests itself in the publicity of man’s subjective will. Again, Lessing said in the “Hamburg Drama Review” agreed with British scholars