Alka Art

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning \action\. which is derived from \to do\. The enactment of drama in theatre performed by actors on a stage before an audience presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts unlike other forms of literature is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BCE) by Sophocles are among the supreme masterpieces of the art of drama. The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia was the Muse of comedy (the laughing face) while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy (the weeping face). Considered as a genre of poetry in general the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BCE)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.