It is important to note that the dramatic performances of the ancient Greek theater were part of the annual religious and civic celebration known as the “City Dionysia” an annual festival in Athens, commemorating Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility, and ritual madness. The theatrical performances were the central focus of the festival and included two major types of drama: tragedy and comedy (also known as satyr plays). Although it is difficult to tell when tragic drama first emerged, many scholars suggest that it was formally introduced by the actor Thespis in 533 BCE. The word tragedy comes from the ancient Greek word tragodia , which literally translates as “goat song.” This is important because scholars have speculated that tragic drama, as a religious ritual, originated in the sacrificial killing of a goat, or scapegoat. The song may have functioned as a kind of prayer, as well as a commemoration of the life of the sacrificial animal. Once again, we can see that like poetry, tragic drama has its origins in musical composition and performance.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) provided one of the earliest accounts of the formal elements of tragic drama in his treatise entitled Poetics . According to Aristotle, tragedies involved a main character of high social standing falling out of favor or perpetrating his or her own demise through hubris (excessive pride or self-conceit, in Greek tragedy often in defiance of the gods) or a tragic flaw that leads to a substantial error in judgment (what the Greeks called hamartia). Most importantly, the suffering of the tragic figure provoked strong feelings of both pity and fear on the part of the audience. The notion of the tragic scapegoat, then, relates to the role of the sacrificial animal in ancient religious rituals of sacrifice. According to Aristotle, when the dramatic performance reaches its resolution, the audience experiences a therapeutic release of these feelings of pity and fear. He termed this therapeutic aspect of tragedy catharsis. Many scholars maintain the theater continues to serve this therapeutic function today.

In the media, the word “tragedy” is commonly used to describe accidents, natural disasters, and even acts of seemingly random violence. Is there any relationship between this common use of the word tragedy and tragedy as a dramatic form? Theatrical performances in ancient Greece were not simply, or even primarily, for the purposes of entertainment. Tragic drama provided the audience with an opportunity to reflect on its own social, political, and religious values. Likewise, whenever so-called “tragic” events occur in our contemporary world, they often lead us to ask searching questions about the nature of our society, the possibility of justice, and perhaps they even cause us to reflect upon our own mortality. In works of ancient Greek tragedy, there is always a chorus, a group of actors who sing and provide commentary on the action taking place in the play. The chorus serves as kind of substitute for the audience and often express ideas or opinions that both reflect and also guide the interpretations of the audience. It can be argued that the theater provides its audience with a metaphorical space for making sense of the darkest and often most difficult aspects of human life.

In modern Western drama, what constitutes a “tragedy” can essentially be as simple as “The flawed protagonist dies at the end.”

Comedy

Contrasted with tragedy, the comedic genre depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy (or at least not tragic) ending. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, the Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia).

Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, but there are many recognized genres of comedy.

Satire and political satire use ironic comedy used to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor.

Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes to critique that form from within (though not necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters.

Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so-called dark or evil elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comedic ways.

A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members.

Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

Melodrama is a style of drama that exaggerates characters, often through the strong use of stereotypes, and presents emotionally charged plots. Rising to popularity in the 18 ^th century, the style was at a peak in the 19^th century with many approaches to melodrama, including the use of music and dance to augment performances. Victorian melodrama particularly is known for its use of stock characters: the hero, the villain, the damsel in distress, the clownish sidekick. Students may even recall some of these stylized characters in early examples of silent film.

Relatedly, a farce is a type of comedy that relies on deliberate absurdity, nonsense, and/or physical humor, even to the point of extravagance or improbability; the popularity of farce, however, was not restricted to the same time period as melodrama and examples of the dramatic style may be found even in antiquity. Literal readings of the written scripts of farces would prove disappointing for it is the enjoyment of the live experience of accumulating absurdity that is central to the style.

Tragedy, Melodrama, and Farce paragraphs from Florida State College at Jacksonville via Libretexts . License: CC BY: Attribution

Comedy section adapted from Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy_(drama)) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License