<P> Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance; a play performed in a theatre, or on radio or television . 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 BC)--the earliest work of dramatic theory . </P> <P> The term "drama" comes from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek: δρᾶμα, drama), which is derived from "I do" (Classical Greek: δράω, drao). 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). </P> <P> In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word "play" or "game" (translating the Anglo - Saxon plèga or Latin ludus) was the standard term used to describe drama until William Shakespeare's time--just as its creator was a "play - maker" rather than a "dramatist" and the building was a "play - house" rather than a "theatre". The use of "drama" in a more narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era . "Drama" in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy--for example, Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887). It is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe "drama" as a genre within their respective media . "Radio drama" has been used in both senses--originally transmitted in a live performance, it has also been used to describe the more high - brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio . </P> <P> 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 Rex (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama . A modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1956). </P>

Short note on drama and songs as teaching tools