Knowra Romantic comedy Romantic comedy A comic genre centered on romantic relationships, often following obstacles toward a union or reconciliation. It appears in literature, theater, film, and television.
Meet-cute : A charming or amusing first encounter between characters who may become romantically involved. This familiar opening gives many romantic comedies their central couple and comic spark.
New Comedy : A form of ancient Greek comedy focused on domestic life, romance, mistaken identity, and social resolution. Its plot devices and lovers helped establish patterns later reused in romantic comedy.
Screwball comedy : A fast-paced film comedy, especially associated with 1930s Hollywood, featuring witty conflict and unconventional romance. It intensifies romantic comedy through rapid dialogue, social reversal, and combative courtship.
Romance novel : A prose fiction genre centered on a developing romantic relationship and an emotionally satisfying ending. Romance novels may use humor, but romantic comedy gives comic conflict equal structural weight.
Commedia dell'arte : An Italian theatrical tradition built around improvised performances, stock characters, and comic plots. Its lovers, meddling elders, and scheming servants helped shape romantic comedy's character patterns.
Menander : An ancient Greek playwright and leading author of New Comedy. His domestic plots helped preserve the foundations of romantic comic drama.
Hollywood romantic comedy : A film genre in which romantic pursuit and comic conflict drive the story toward a relationship resolution. Hollywood films turned the genre into a durable popular form with recognizable plot conventions.
Comedy of manners : A comedy that satirizes the behavior and social conventions of a particular class or society. Its courtship plots overlap with romantic comedy, but social satire may take precedence over romance.
Obstacles to love : Conflicts or circumstances that prevent lovers from forming or sustaining a relationship. Romantic comedy generates much of its humor by delaying the couple's union.
Shakespearean comedy : A group of Shakespeare's plays characterized by comic complications and often concluding in marriage or reunion. These plays established influential examples of romance resolved through comic reunion.
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