Перевести текст the most widespread and familiar subdivisions of drama are comedy and tragedy, a division established by the greeks. even today the smiling and weeping masks worn by greek actors in comedy and tragedy symbolize the two branches of drama. traditionally, a tragedy is dominated by a serious tone, concerns kings and princes, deals with profound issues, and usually concludes with the death of the leading character. a comedy typically deals with common people, is dominated by a light tone that encourages laughter (or at least amusement or entertainment), and ends happily, often with the uniting of a pair of young lovers. during the renaissance (14th century to 17th century) other forms of drama appeared, and dramatists modified the two traditional forms. shakespeare divided his plays into comedies, tragedies, and histories, the latter presenting national history in dramatic form. he also departed from classic practice by putting important comic scenes into his tragedies. in italy, certain critics and dramatists began mixing elements and aspects of the two traditional kinds of theater to create a third kind, called tragicomedy. the mixture of moods would become much more common in the 19th and 20th centuries. after the renaissance the terms comedy and tragedy remained central, but writers subdivided each type and developed new combined forms as well. tragedy remained the genre used most often to explore the profound philosophic questions of good and evil and humankind’s place in the universe, while comedy emphasized people in their social aspects and personal relationships. this split made comedy the more appropriate form for social commentary and criticism as well as for simple amusement. comedy emphasizing wit and style among the upper classes became known as high comedy or comedy of manners, as opposed to low comedy or farce. low comedy traditionally gains its effects from physical humor that can even turn violent at times and from crude verbal jokes, rather than from verbal wit or nuances of social behavior. farce as a popular, nonliterary form can be traced back to classical greece. the equivalent form of tragedy with a wide popular appeal, called melodrama, emerged as a recognized type of theater in the 19th century (though some modern critics characterize certain plays by euripides as melodramas). like farce, melodrama is associated with physical action. in the 18th century, as interest grew in the exploration of the emotions, sentimental comedy developed. it stressed feelings rather than laughter and encouraged audience sympathy with the characters and their trials. other new forms included tragedies that dealt with middle-class characters and serious plays about middle-class life, often called simply dramas. in the 20th century such middle-class drama replaced tragedy as the major serious form of theatrical writing.
