Bénigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods, Public Domain
Tragedy focused on heavy themes like murder, vengeance, and betrayal. Most tragedies focused on characters who were legendary heroes or from royal families. The word itself came from the Greek words ‘Goat’ and ‘Song’, which might have referred to the animal sacrifices that were made during the festivals, or just another reference to satyrs. Aristotle spent a lot of time studying tragedies, and summarized his findings in a literary work named ‘The Poetics’. He found six elements that were common in every tragedy: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song. For a tragedy to work, the story had to be about a mostly good character with a fatal flaw who is tested and brought down though the process. Most works of tragedy dramas were written by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. However, because hordes kept burning down libraries, most plays didn’t survive.