Greek Drama
Tragedy and Comedy
Tragedy
A tragedy is a serious drama about common themes such as love, hate, war, or betrayal. Someone with extraordinary abilities and who was important was usually a hero. A hero's downfall was usually caused by a tragic flaw; an error in judgement or personality defect.
Comedy
A comedy contained scenes filled with slap-stick situations and crude humor. Most Greek comedies were satires; works that poked fun at a subject. Customs, politics, respected people, or ideas of the time were often made fun of by playwrights. Aristophanes wrote the first great comedies of the stage.