Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity.

Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός), which strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking".

[1] In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in making fun at other people or stereotypes.

Literary critic Northrop Frye described the comic genre as a drama that pits two societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict.

A later view[further explanation needed] characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to its hopes; in this sense, the youth is understood to be constrained by its lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse to ruses that engender dramatic consequences.