Cheryl E. Merritt
Drama commenced with religious celebrations; out of the various pagan rites and festivals arose the earliest drama of an entertaining kind. Specifically, Greek tragedy and Greek comedy. It seems worthwhile to survey briefly the development of drama as a generic form. They all try to capture moments of life.
Greek Tragedy arose from the patterns of Dionysian rites of life and death. That is, from the very start, Greek tragedy addressed itself to serious dimensions of life and human character.
Greek comedy also arose out of early religious celebrations. Specifically from the Dionysian rites of fertility. The earliest Greek comedies not only dealt with fertility but also with phallic ceremonies, and although comedy slowly moved away from this original association, many of the very earliest plays were extremely sexual in both costume and script. Greek comedy is generally divided into three categories: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. In Old Comedy we discover a great deal of boisterous comment on affairs of state through political satire. Old Comedy is best exemplified by plays such as, “The Frog and The Birds”, by the early Greek dramatist Aristophanes. Middle Comedy has no surviving examples.