Poetic (In-)Justice in Comedy

[...]these qualities are welcome in comedy.8 Compared to the pale character of Orsino, absorbed in affected love (1.1), Sir Toby's vitality reaches the audience as a refresh- ing breeze. The first thing that Bassanio mentions, "a lady richly left," either reflects the first thing that had caught his own attention, or perhaps it is the attribute that he believes Antonio is mostly interested in. [...]we can get the impression that he is either a gold digger and the prospective bride is for him, first and foremost, a business opportunity, or else he is a manipulative salesperson, who persuades Antonio to give him a highly risky loan by foregrounding Portia's wealth. Malvolio's fantasy to be married to Olivia and become the master of the household may of course offend a particular social decorum and pose a threat to class boundaries. [...]Malvolio's punishment can be described as appropriate for his presumptuous aspirations to transgress social boundaries and destabilize the very foundations of the political structure.10 Yet, the idea of a cross-class marriage is not totally strange to Twelfth Night. The fate of the major character of the play, Knemon, can illustrate the tendency of comedy to inflict on the play's "bad guy," i.e. the character who tries to block the lovers' union, a punishment disproportionate to his alleged sin or crime. Since Roman comedy (Plautus, Terence) took its cue from Greek New Comedy, and since almost all modern comedies have taken their cue from Roman come-dy, Menander's Dyskolos can tell us something important not only about the origins of a comic plot-a story about a loving couple and the way they overcome the obstacles that stand in their way-but also about the element of poetic injustice ingrained in comedy's happy ending.