Comedic Passion, Power, and Performance: Joanna Baillie’s Comedies in A Series of Plays ( The Tryal, The Election, The Second Marriage , and The Siege )

While considerable attention has been given to Scottish-playwright Joanna Baillie’s tragedies over the past thirty years, much less has been written about her comedies. Her own assessment of comedy in her Introductory Discourse is more concise than her attention to tragedy but no less important. She explains that “Comedy presents to us men, as we find them in the ordinary intercourse of the world, with all the weaknesses, follies, caprice, prejudices, and absurdities which a near and familiar view of them discovers.” In contrast to tragedy, comedy reflects “the busy turmoil of ordinary life” and the “varied fashions and manners of the world.” This article examines Baillie’s first-four comedies with attention to passion, power, and performance (or performability), as well as her use of “performances within the performance,” a device used in her tragedies as well.