330 BC Aristotle, a greek philosopher, wrote Poetics. Since that time it has been at the center of many arguments. In Poetics, Aristotle gave a model of Greek Drama. The bulk of the surviving text describes Greek Tragedies of his era. The latest debate being over the existence and even possibility of modern tragedies.
Most people can agree that modern drama can be tragic.
However, beyond this point the issue becomes blurred. Some critics claim that classic tragedies are a thing of the past. The first documented case of this was back in Elizabethan England. We can date rather precisely the moment at which these claims were first presented. Nor is it needful, or almost possible in these our times . . . to observe the old state and splendor of dramatic poems, with preservati on of any popular delight.