Misunderstandings of intention, fruitless struggles of absurd passion,
contradictions of temper, and laughable situations there were; but still
the form of the representation itself was serious; it proceeded as much
according to settled laws, and used as much the same means of art,
though to a different purpose, as the regular tragedy itself. But in the
old comedy the very form itself is whimsical; the whole work is one
great jest, comprehending a world of jests within it, among which each
maintains its own place without seeming to concern itself as to the
relation in which it may stand to its fellows. In short, in Sophocles,
the constitution of tragedy is monarchical, but such as it existed in
elder Greece, limited by laws, and therefore the more venerable,--all
the parts adapting and submitting themselves to the majesty of the
heroic sceptre:--in Aristophanes, comedy, on the contrary, is poetry in
its most democratic form, and it is a fundamental principle with it,
rather to risk all the confusion of anarchy, than to destroy the
independence and privileges of its individual constituents,--place,
verse, characters, even single thoughts, conceits, and allusions, each
turning on the pivot of its own free will.

The tragic poet idealizes his characters by giving to the spiritual part
of our nature a more decided preponderance over the animal cravings and
impulses, than is met with in real life: the comic poet idealizes his
characters by making the animal the governing power, and the
intellectual the mere instrument. But as tragedy is not a collection of
virtues and perfections, but takes care only that the vices and
imperfections shall spring from the passions, errors, and prejudices
which arise out of the soul;--so neither is comedy a mere crowd of vices
and follies, but whatever qualities it represents, even though they are
in a certain sense amiable, it still displays them as having their
origin in some dependence on our lower nature, accompanied with a defect