how is comedy related to tragedy and epic?

Question

i am doing my english honors homework, and i got stumped by this question. we are reading aristotle's poetics, and we have to answer questions about it. i don't know how to do this one.

Answer 1

the most significant relationship between all three is a heightened sense of emotion. Usually comedies, the emotion is that of great joy or hope of things to come. In tragedy, it is just that- a tragic emotion- death, war, murder, etc. Epics- the heightened emotion in that is usually pride, hubris, nationalism etc...

Answer 2

This isn't specifically related to Aristotle, but I've heard it teached that comedies are about relationships and community being built up, and tragedies are about community being broken down. To take Shakespeare for example, in his comedies like Much Ado About Nothing, everybody winds up with closer relationships and in closer communities (best represented by all of the marriages) and in tragedies like King Lear, the community is in disarray (most represented by all the dead people).
And I don't know what to do with epics. Hope this helps some.

Answer 3

As I recall...

Tragedies are about Kings, Princes, and other "noble" types. These are people you think you should look up to, except the protagonist has One fatal flaw, that brings about his Demise (or Downfall)

The protagonist of a Tragedy starts out with everything, and in the course of the store, his own failure causes him to lose everything he cares about. In end of a tragedy, he has lost the girl, ended up penniless, or somesuch...

the protagonist of a comedy is low-born. He starts out with noting, and in the end comes out better than he started, through no particular talent of his own. In the end of a comedy the protagonist has won the girl, found the treasure, or somesuch.

An epic is a drama that spans decades of time or great geographical distances