he will make any joke, even against himself, to please another, but an ironical person jokes to please himself. This is why we say that buffoonery is more suited to a slave and less to a free citizen than is irony. But even the ironical man errs, just as does the boaster in the opposite way; the first understates the truth, the second overstates it. Both, then, are liars, but the boaster seems more worthy of blame. But, as we said, not every kind of bad character is appropriate, but only those that are not painful or destructive.
(A Hypothetical Reconstruction of Poetics II
53)4
Obviously, the Aristotelian notion of comic character types emphasizes a moral perspective. Frye’s definitions, for the most part, correspond well to the Classical definitions. But Frye’s addition of the churl (or agroikos) and his definition of this type do not readily adhere to what occurs in Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare’s churls most clearly seem to be much closer to resembling the ironical type (or eiron) and therefore would not be connected to the impostor type (or alazon) as Frye posits it. Thus, the fourth category is not a necessary addition.
But more importantly, Frye’s new label of self-deprecator for the ironical type (eiron) causes some problems because of its limitations. During the Classical Age the ironical type is clearly superior to the other two types (having the demeanor of a “free