Acc to modern critics, Sanskrit drama, has a religious origin, as the Vedas are considered as the eternal source of all sublime and fine arts. Some critics also give credit to a semi-religious, secular or popular origin. All the same, there is no conclusive evidence to prove the same. There have be...

In 500 B.C., Greek theatre was the most popular form of entertainment. It is important to understand that drama began in the Greek world as a form of religious ritual, but it was good entertainment especially if it contained a lot of blood or gore. Greek drama was not only performed in the theatre b...

Modern drama began by turning toward realism and away from the fantasy of nineteenth-century melodrama and farce. Realism gave rise to various innovations that served to express the dramatist\'s vision of what reality is. These attempts to be \" more real than real\" can be called expressionism. ...

Contributions of Aeschylus and Sophocles to DramaThe most prestigious of the drama festivals held in Athens was the City Dionysia, held of a six-day period. Hundreds of visitors, dignitaries, and rural citizens crowded the city to see the spectacle. Aeschylus (524-456 B.C.) and Sophocles (496-406 ...

Human Conflicts in DramaDrama is literature that "makes use of plot and characters, develops themes, arouses emotional responses and may be either literary or commercial in its reality"(). Two great examples of drama are "Othello", written by William Shakespeare, and also "Death of a Salesman", wri...

When Diana Taylor describes the social drama surrounding Princess Diana's death, she describes the "quasi-sacred" realm on which an "illusion of a cohesive, 'universal' audience" is played out (135). Like Di's death, the terrorist attacks of September 11 offered a global spectacle. September 11 was ...

In southeastern Europe, along the Mediterranean Sea is the mountainous peninsula called Greece. It is a small country (only about 50,000 squares miles in area) and almost the size of New York. Greece is a very beautiful land. The long coast line is so broken that the deep blue sea seems to be every...

The reputations that people carry have a lot to do with their code of honour. Showing honour makes a person respected and strong and dishonour brings shame and misfortune. In the Greek tragedy Antigone written by Sophocles and the Shakespearean tragedy Othello written by William Shakespeare, honou...

Historical Drama and the Dimensions of Tragedy: A Man For All Seasons and The CrucibleA comparison of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons and Arthur Miller's The Crucible demonstrates the potentiality ofhistorical drama to produce melodrama or tragedy. Written at approximately the sam...

COSTUMES AND MASKS IN GREEK DRAMA Greek Drama originated at the beginning of the 5th Century. It began as religious festivals and continued on to purposes such as entertainment and dealing with political, social, moral or ethical issues of the time. There were many famous Greek Playwrights such ...

Sophocles' drama is a perfect example of Aristotle's paradigm. Aristotle states that tragedy is "drama whose main characters are noble, and the chief point of tragedy is to show how a person's fortune can change because of circumstances that are-or may sometimes seem to be-beyond...

"The stage but echoes back the public voice./The drama's laws the drama's patrons give./For we that live to please, must please to live" -Samuel Johnson The fundamental purpose of drama is to tell a story and to entertain. In order for this to ta...

Four thousand years ago the humanities were introduced by the Ancient Greeks. The men began to record their feelings and ideas in the form of architecture, sculpture, plays, and paintings which make up the humanities. These numerous artists, writers, and politicians set the foundation for the whole...

Oedipus: The Tragic Hero (#3) In "Oedipus the King," Sophocles concocts one of the most famous and intricate characters of Greek drama. A tragic hero, Oedipus' desire for self-discovery and understanding inevitably leads to his tragic downfall. In the end, it can be seen that Oedipus' ...

The basis of Greek drama was a religious festival, which paid homage to Dyonicis, god of wine and fertility. Greek drama consisted of a protagonist, the main character, of noble birth whose life is full of happiness in the beginning, but ends up in agony in the end due to their tragic flaw or weakn...

In Ancient Greece, boys go to school, while the girls stayed at home to help their moms cook and look after the household. In Athens, it was a man's world. In the family, the father was the head of the family. The wife stayed at home and ran the household. The husband could divorce, if the wife wa...

The theatre in the City Dionysia was a great semi-circle on the slope of the Acropolis, with rows of stone seats. The front row consisted of marble chairs; these were reserved for the priests of Dionysus and the chief magistrates. Beyond the front row was a circular space called the orchestra, where...

"LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL" "Life is Beautiful", is one of my favorite movies of all time. Of course to me, it is so meaningful since so many of my ancestors died in the holocaust, which was the main point of the movie. Though I cannot relate even one bit to what did happen in the ...

The Tragic Life of a Salesman In Author Miller's relentless drama, Death of a Salesman, one is able to examine a common man and the downward spiral to his ultimate demise. This timeless drama addresses the raw, painful conflicts within one family and tackles the myth of the "Ameri...

It has been said that tragedy is not depressing because the audience sees a noble conception of human character. Argue for or against this view.Tragedy as a theatrical art form is merely a play that has a bad ending, usually catastrophic. The drama is portraying a conflict between the protagonist a...

CARMENopera by Jean BijetDuring the seventeen century a form of musical drama in which vocal and instrumental music are both used, was further distinguished into the performance of tragic and comic plays. Buffa opera (in French - Comique, and in German - Singspliel), had its purpose to make people l...

When a piece of work has a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force, and has a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that excites pity or terror, it classifies as a tragedy. The most famous tragedies were written by authors hundreds of years ago. Tho...

Authorial InformationEuripides was born in 484 BC and took up drama at the young age of 25. At most drama competitions, however his plays came in last place until he was about 45 or 50 years old. In his entire life, he wrote 92 plays of which only five received first place awards at competition. Eur...

Dramatist of Greek Tragedy There were many dramatists in the years of B.C. There were three of them that were known more than any other. Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. These three guys are much alike but they also have their differences. The "Father of Tragedy," Aeschylus was bor...

Before the year 479 BCE, most of the innovations from the Greeks were art in its most common form and in the mathematics and sciences. Examples of this are Pythagoras in 525; he developed a throm about right triangles. It wasn\'t until aproxiamtely 458 Bce that the first tragedy was created. Drama h...