City comedy

City comedy is a common genre of Elizabethan drama. It is a vague term that different scholars use to mean slightly different things. Here are the usual meanings:

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• Any Elizabethan comedy set in London and depicting ordinary London life.
• Specifically, London comedies that are satirical in nature, depicting London as a hotbed of sin; in particular, the comedies of Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton and John Marston.

It can be considered a forerunner of the comedy of manners.

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City comedy: See also ►