Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc, performed in a theatre, or on radioor television.[1] Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyricalmodes ever since Aristotle‘s Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.[2]
The term “drama” comes from a Greek word meaning “action” (Classical Greek: δρᾶμα, drama), which is derived from “I do” (Classical Greek: δράω, drao). The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy.
In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word “play” or “game” (translating the Anglo-Saxonpleġan or Latin ludus) was the standard term used to describe drama until William Shakespeare‘s time—just as its creator was a “play-maker” rather than a “dramatist” and the building was a “play-house” rather than a “theatre“.
Source :- Wikipedia
