Also 6 tragy-, 7 trage-, tragœ-; see also COMEDY. [a. F. tragi-comédie (1545 in Hatz.-Darm.) = It. tragi-comedia (Florio), ad. late L. tragicōmœdia (Lactantius, a. 325), syncopated from tragico-cōmœdia (Plautus); f. L. tragicus tragic + cōmœdia comedy.]
1. A play (or, rarely, a story) combining the qualities of a tragedy and a comedy, or containing both tragic and comic elements; sometimes spec. a play mainly of tragic character, but with a happy ending.
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 65. The right sportfulnes, is [not] by … mungrell Tragy-comedie obtained.
[1603. Harsnet, Pop. Impost., xxiii. 150. Our Dæmonopoiïa or deuil-fiction is Tragico-Comœdia, a mixture of both as Amphitryo in Plautus is.]
1640. Killigrew (title), The Prisoners. A Tragæ-Comedy.
1652. C. B. Stapylton, Herodian, Advt. He [Herodian] represents … the Emperors of that Age and their Courts, with Comedies, Tragedies and Tragicomedies.
1664. Flecknoe (title), Love’s Kingdom. A Pastoral Trage-Comedy.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 178/1. When tragedy took a graver turn, something of the former drollery was still retained, as in that which we call tragi-comedy.
1812. Maryland Gaz., 16 April, 3/4. Geo. Shaw & Co. Have received a second edition of ‘Thinks I to Myself,’ a serio-ludicro, tragico-comico Tale.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., v. I. 636. Shakspeare had borrowed from Whetstone the plot of the noble tragicomedy of Measure for Measure.
2. fig. An event or series of events of mixed tragic and comic character; a combination of pathetic and humorous elements in real life.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1676), 619. His acts … may plainly shew, that all that was but a Tragi-comedy ceremoniously ended.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Cypress Grove, Wks. (1711), 126. Every one cometh there to act his part of this tragi-comedy, called life.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 36, ¶ 5. What heightened the Tragi-Comedy of this Market for Annuities.
1838. Lytton, Calderon, i. The Tragi-Comedy of Court Intrigue.
Hence Tragi-comedian, an actor who performs in tragi-comedy; Tragi-comedietta (nonce-wd.), a slight or sketchy tragi-comedy.
c. 1626. Middleton, Mayor of Queenborough, V. i. Comedians, tragedians, tragi-comedians.
1892. Pall Mall G., 12 May, 3/1. Tragedy is a name not to be taken in vain, least of all by a poet of Mr. Swinburne’s calibre. *Tragi-comedietta would have come nearer the mark.
