Russ McDonald has this shrewd comment about the combination of slapstick comedy and satisfied resolution in MSND : “Even as we anticipate a happy ending, we take pleasure in watching shenanigans, pretension, and the well-aimed custard pie. This tension amounts to a contest between the end and the middle: The resolution provokes the laughter of satisfaction; the comic conflict, the laughter of scorn.” This, I think, is a wonderful way to describe the difference between the old comedy of Aristophanes and the comedy of Christian literature. The latter does not delete the slapstick, the scorned, or the satirical; but it embeds this in a larger framework where what James Wood has called the comedy of forgiveness reigns.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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