By Martha Quillen
When Dante Alighieri produced his epic poem, “The Divine Comedy,” it was dubbed Dante’s “Commedia,” not because it was supposed to be funny, but because in medieval times a “comedy” was a story with a happy ending.
Over the centuries, our definition of comedy expanded to include jokes, satire, and slapstick – along with the burlesque, the ludicrous, and the inane. Now, events of any sort tend to inspire comedy – although not always intentionally.
Take the U.S. House of Representatives, for example.