Elegiac comedy was a genre of medieval Latin literature—or drama—represented by about twenty texts written in the 12th and 13th centuries in the liberal arts schools of west central France (roughly the Loire Valley).
These comedies were composed in a high style, but they were typically about low or unimportant subject matter; lyric complaints only sometimes mixed with amorous content.
Plautus, though less widely read in the Middle Ages, was also an influence, as were the Scholastic debates concerning the nature of universals and other contemporary philosophical problems, with which the elegiac comedies often dealt, always humorously but no doubt sometimes to a serious end.
The comedies were often about a sexual conquest, in which the lover must use his guile to overcome obstacles such as guardians, rivals, and reluctance on the part of the woman.
The lack of resources on the part of the hero forces him to resort to deception and to employ intermediaries (as Ovid did in his narratives) in order to win the object of his desire.
Other arguments raised against the dramatic performance of the comedies is, in general, their large number of narrative segments as opposed to dialogue.