# data[].attributes.body
The term Drama comes from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek: δρᾶμα, drama), which is derived from the verb meaning "to do" or "to act" (Classical Greek: δράω, draō).

# data[].attributes.body
The two famous masks of drama represent the division between comedy and tragedy.

# data[].attributes.body
At first, and after Aristotle's Poetics (the earliest work of dramatic theory), drama was considered a genre of poetry and was contrasted with the epic and the lyrics.

# data[].attributes.body
Western drama originates in classical Greece. Began to develop in the sixth century B.C. as part of the worship of the Greek god of wine and fertility, Dionysus.

# data[].attributes.headline
The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and satyr play.

# data[].attributes.subject
The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and satyr play.

# data[].attributes.body
The origins of drama go back to competitions held as part of festivities celebrating the god Dionysus

# data[].attributes.body
Great Dionysia, also called City Dionysia, ancient dramatic festivalin which tragedy, comedy, and satyrics drama origiinated; it was held in Athens in March in honous of Dionysus, the god of wine.

# data[].attributes.body
1. In the ancient world, rituals usually required animal sacrifice; in tragic drama, the hero is sacrificed onstage.

2.  Rituals do not involve us by way of identification with a character, as plays do, and they do not depend on surprise or suspense.

# data[].attributes.body
The tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,

the comic writers: Aristophanes and, from the late 4th century, Menander.

# data[].attributes.body
He was an ancient Greek tragedian and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays

# data[].attributes.body
He is one of three ancient Greek tragedians at least one of whose plays has survived in full. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus.

# data[].attributes.body
He was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full.

# data[].attributes.body
He was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy

# data[].attributes.body
He was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the City Dionysia is unknown.

# data[].attributes.body
Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BCE) into several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome encountered Greek drama.

# data[].attributes.body
In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those ofTerence).

# data[].attributes.body
Medieval drama, when it emerged hundreds of years after the original tragedies and comedies, was a new creation rather than a rebirth, the drama of earlier times having had almost no influence on it.

# data[].attributes.body
The Middle Ages is a period of European history that lasted from the 5th until the 15th centuries. It began with the collapse of theWestern Roman Empire, and was followed by the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery

# data[].attributes.body
The Christian church had traditionally opposed any form of theater. But little by little, in the Easter service, and later in the Christmas service, bits of chanted dialogue, called tropes, were interpolated into the liturgy. Priests, impersonating biblical figures, acted out minuscule scenes from the holiday stories.

# data[].attributes.body
The Renaissance saw a huge resurgence in all types of art, including theater. It was during this time that Commedia Dell'arte flourished and the first Elizabethan playhouse opened.

# data[].attributes.body
One of the world's most renowned playwrights, wrote and produced many plays that are still performed regularly even today.

Shakespeare was one of the first to weave comic elements into tragedies. He also developed a structure and several types of characters that are still common in modern drama.

# data[].attributes.body
The 18th century was a time when more plays were being written for and about the middle class. At first, the theaters relied on the pre-CivilWar repertoire; before long, however, they felt called upon to bring these plays into line with their more "refined," French-influenced sensibilities.

# data[].attributes.body
Toward the end of the century, the Romantic period began in Western Europe, which heavily influenced the theater of that era. Romanticism focused on emotion rather than intellect.This movement continued through the beginning of the 19th century.

# data[].attributes.body
Romanticism first appeared in Germany, a country with little native theatre other than rustic farces before the 18th century. By the 1820s Romanticism dominated the theatre of most of Europe. These plays had no single style but were generally strongly emotional, and, in their experimentation with form, laid the groundwork for the rejection of Neo-Classicism.

# data[].attributes.body
Modern drama involved much experimentation with new forms and ideas. In the early part of the 20th century, musical drama came to dominate stages in NewYork and England, although each theater season saw the release of straight dramatic plays as well.

# data[].attributes.headline
The modern drama involved much experimentation with new forms and ideas.

# data[].attributes.subject
The modern drama involved much experimentation with new forms and ideas.

# data[].attributes.body
In the early part of the 20th century, musical drama came to dominate stages in NewYork and England, although each theater season saw the release of straight dramatic plays as well.

# data[].attributes.body
The Symbolist movement in France in the 1880s affected the theater.The movement called for "de-theatricalizing" the theatre, meaning stripping away all the technological and scenic encumbrances of the 19th century and replacing them with a spirituality that was to come from the text and the acting.

# data[].attributes.body
Was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.

# data[].attributes.body
Was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time

# data[].attributes.body
Was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty plays and more than thirty works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades.

# data[].attributes.body
The Expressionist movement was popular in the 1910s and 1920s, largely in Germany. It explored the more violent, grotesque aspects of the human psyche, creating a nightmare world onstage. Distortion and exaggeration and a suggestive use of light and shadow typify Expressionism.

# data[].attributes.body
Many playwrights of the 1960s and 1970s-Sam Shepard in the United States, Tom Stoppard in England-built plays around language: language as a game, language as sound, language as a barrier, language as a reflection of society. In their plays, dialogue frequently cannot be read simply as a rational exchange of information. Many playwrights also mirrored society's frustration with a seemingly uncontrollable, self-destructive world.

# data[].attributes.body
New playwriting was largely overshadowed by theatrical productions, which generally took classical plays and reinterpreted them, often in bold new scenographic spectacles, expressing ideas more through action and the use of space than through language.