Comedia y Existencia: A propósito de cine y teatro en Edgar Neville, Enrique Jardiel Poncela y Miguel Mihura

This article proposes a review of the comic perception of human existence in the theatre and cinema of some outstanding authors of the so-called the other generation of 27 or generation of “the comedians”. Three works are taken
as references: La vida en un hilo, by Edgar Neville; Usted tiene ojos de mujer fatal, by Enrique Jardiel Poncela; and Maribel y la extraña familia, by Miguel Mihura. A rereading of the categoryof Comedy based on Aristotle’s Poetics and Plato’s
Symposium is carried out through the concept of dialysis as opposed to catharsis. The distinction in the ethics between virtue and continence is noted
as a way of conceiving the subversive power of the comic imagination in its modernist context, beyond the category of humour. The motifs of the
double, repetition and secrecy acquire a relevant significance in their filmic scripts between the ’40 and ’60 linked to the American Comedy.