 In his Lectures on Dramatic Art, Schlegel praised the use of masks in theatrical representations as well as those performers who managed to create an emotional distance between themselves, the audience and the role they were playing. Once more, art is not about deceiving or hiding, but about the production or the creation of a world within a world. This also explains Schlegel’s admiration of Old Comedy, because in this case the spectator is constantly forced to remain aware of the experience in which s/he is partaking, namely the experience of the difference between reality and illusion. A similar reconsideration of comedy was also the basis for other contemporary authors in Schlegel’s circle, such as Ludwig Tieck with his version of the 17th century fairy tale Der gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots). Schlegel stresses that, in contrast to tragedy (where the author needs to remain invisible to guarantee the integrity of his/her fictional world); in comedy, the gap between the different levels of reality and illusion, or rather, the very disintegration of the unity of the story becomes the center of the play. As Schlegel puts it, in Old Comedy: “the whole production was one entire jest within itself” (LDA: 108). In Aristophanes’ plays, the chorus, which regularly interrupts the course of the play to address the audience with reference to the story (parabisis), the author and the people from the audience alike, virtually destroys all the elements and characteristics of tragedy: its seriousness as well as its harmonious unity is systematically parodied. Not only the scenes, not only the poetry, but also the tragic composition, the music, acting, and dancing, were object of a hilarious distortion. For Schlegel, this did not mean that comedy should be understood as a derivative of tragedy; on the contrary, he affirms it to be “a species of poetry as independent and original as tragedy itself” (LDA: 108). In fact, A.W. Schlegel’s characterization of the distinction between the character of Old Comedy and Greek tragedy would become a central reference in literary criticism.