Greek tragedy
genre of theatre from Ancient Greece
Greek tragedy (Ancient Greek: τραγῳδία, romanized: tragōidía) is one of the three principal theatrical genres from Ancient Greece and Greek-inhabited Anatolia, along with comedy and the satyr play. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, the works of which are sometimes called Attic tragedy.
Greek tragedy is widely believed to be an extension of the ancient rites carried out in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and theatre, and it greatly influenced the theatre of Ancient Rome and the Renaissance. Tragic plots were most often based upon myths from the oral traditions of archaic epics. In tragic theatre, however, these narratives were presented by actors. The most acclaimed Greek tragedians are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These tragedians often explored many themes of human nature, mainly as a way of connecting with the audience but also as way of bringing the audience into the play.
Etymology
Aristotelian hypothesis
The origin of the word tragedy has been a matter of discussion from ancient times. The primary source of knowledge on the question is the Poetics of Aristotle. Aristotle was able to gather first-hand documentation from theater performance in Attica, which is inaccessible to scholars today.
“Greek tragedy” enters the record as genre of theatre from Ancient Greece. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Greek, tragedy and genre can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34620. The Library of Congress control number is sh85057144. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Greek tragedy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.