Harlequinade Harlequinade Harlequinade is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the "Oxford English Dictionary" as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the Commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon (evolved from the character Pantalone),
Pierrot the "complaints" of his first published volume of poems (1885) into "Lord" Pierrot's mouth—and dedicated his next book, "The Imitation of Our Lady the Moon" (1886), completely to Pierrot and his world. (Pierrots were legion among the minor, now-forgotten poets: for samples, see Willette's journal "The Pierrot", which appeared between 1888 and 1889, then again in 1891.) In the realm of song, Claude Debussy set both Verlaine's "Pantomime" and Banville's "Pierrot" (1842) to music in 1881 (not published until 1926)—the only precedents among works by major composers being the "Pierrot" section of Telemann's "Burlesque Overture" (1717–22), Mozart's 1783 "Masquerade" (in