"There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience"
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Comedy and tragedy aren’t opposite poles in Baker’s view; they’re the same raw ore, refined by angle and emphasis. That’s a quietly destabilizing claim for anyone who treats genres as moral categories (comedy = light, tragedy = serious). Baker, a major figure in early American theater education, is speaking from inside the craft: the stage doesn’t discover meaning, it manufactures it. The “material” is human behavior under pressure - desire, misunderstanding, betrayal, pride - and the dramatist’s job is to light it so the audience reads it as either a bruise or a punchline.
The key word is “essential.” He’s not denying tonal differences; he’s stripping them of metaphysical prestige. What separates laughter from dread is framing: what gets lingered on, what gets cut away, whose pain is treated as intimate versus incidental, how timing turns a fall into slapstick or catastrophe. “Clever emphasis” is both praise and warning. It celebrates technique, but it also admits persuasion, even manipulation. The audience’s “point of view” isn’t merely invited; it’s engineered.
Context matters: Baker taught at Harvard and helped formalize playwriting as a discipline when mass entertainment was expanding and realism was reshaping the stage. His line reads like a modern media critique before its time: if tragedy and comedy share ingredients, then the ethics of storytelling sit not in subject matter but in editorial choice. What you’re asked to feel is never neutral; it’s a directed experience.
The key word is “essential.” He’s not denying tonal differences; he’s stripping them of metaphysical prestige. What separates laughter from dread is framing: what gets lingered on, what gets cut away, whose pain is treated as intimate versus incidental, how timing turns a fall into slapstick or catastrophe. “Clever emphasis” is both praise and warning. It celebrates technique, but it also admits persuasion, even manipulation. The audience’s “point of view” isn’t merely invited; it’s engineered.
Context matters: Baker taught at Harvard and helped formalize playwriting as a discipline when mass entertainment was expanding and realism was reshaping the stage. His line reads like a modern media critique before its time: if tragedy and comedy share ingredients, then the ethics of storytelling sit not in subject matter but in editorial choice. What you’re asked to feel is never neutral; it’s a directed experience.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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