The Greeks created three forms of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.

The first Greek tragedy was created in the middle of the sixth century B.C. by Thespis, when he distinguished himself from the chorus as a character and entered into dialogue with the chorus during the performance of an ode in honour of Dionysus, thus reating dramatic confrontation. In the fifth century B.C., this was the golden age of Greek tragedy, great works by the poets Aeschylus, Sophoclaes, and Euripides were written, and some of them survive today, providing a measure by which all Western dramas are judged.

The word tragodia, however, is an Athenian word that was never found elsewhere until Attic drama spread all over Greece. This fact, plus the certainty that the language of tragedy “is an artificial language never spoken by anybody but created or developed for poetic purposes.” The idea of a unique form of Greek tragedy is derived from only thirty two extant plays by three playwrights- Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides- plus many fragments from other playwrights. This is all that remains from thousands of plays by numerous playwrights.

  • One of the most striking features of Greek tragedy is the fact that nearly all its plots were based on the stories of the Heroic Age, the time of the Trojan War and the generations that came before and after it.

  • Greek tragedies focused on the protagonist, who was always a person of noble birth. This person was at the mercy of his or her moira, or fate, of which he or she did not have a complete understanding.

  • The anagnorisis, the moment of recognition of destiny, was most often satisfying for the audience if this recognition occurred at the same instant that the tragic hero’s fortune reversed, known as peripeteia. The most perfect example of this conjunction of peripeteia and anagnorisis was, according to Aristotle, to be found in Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles.



There are six parts consequently of every tragedy, as a whole, that is, of such or such quality, viz. a Fable or Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle and Melody.

Tragedy is essentially an imitation not of persons but of an action and life, or happiness and misery.

The first essential, the life and soul so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot, and the Characters come second.

Tragedy is an imitation of personages better than the ordinary man.

There are four distinct species of Tragedy—that being the number of constituents also that have been mentioned: first, the complex Tragedy, which is all Peripety and Discover; second, the Tragedy of suffering, . . .; third, the Tragedy of character. . . . The fourth constituent is that of Spectacle. . . . The poet’s aim, then should be to combine every element of interest, if possible, or else the more important and major part of them.