Greek

Drama aims to make profitable terms with the alien powers surrounding man. Tragedy engages evil and death, the numinous and the eternal; though solemn it is not sad; and rhythms of dance, music or metre, deep analogues to the rhythms of sexual activity, assist in establishing the harmony. Sir William Ridgeway in The Origin of Tragedy (1910) and The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races (1915) argued that Greek tragedy, with its heavy emphasis on ghosts, tombs and burial rites, could not have derived from such a deity and must be related rather to hero and ancestor worship and the cult of the dead. Greek drama is made of chorus and actors. The chorus Nietzsche, following Aristotle, relates to the ecstatic lyric, the dithyramb, and Dionysus; the actors, to sculpture, epic poetry, and Apollo. In Greek tragedy the Dionysian chorus moves and chants in ritual deliberation from its place in the 'orchestra' interpreting and dominating the epic action.