Dramatic theory
Dramatic theory is a term used for works that attempt to form theories about theatre and drama. Examples of ancient dramatic theory include Aristotle's "Poetics" from Ancient Greece and Bharata Muni's "Natyasastra" from ancient India. Dramatic theory is studied as part of theatre studies. Term. In antiquity, and again from the Renaissance to around 1900, drama was the most respected genre of poetry, even if it increasingly surpassed the novel in its public significance. Therefore, there has been constant discussion about what constitutes and distinguishes the respectable form from the less prestigious other genres. In the  theories of drama, for example, attempts were made to reconcile the literary quality and the social rank of a drama or to play them off against one another. This is particularly true of the traditional distinction between tragedy and comedy. Since the late 18th century, commercial success has also been a reason for positive or negative reviews. In this context, the private folk piece separated from the courtly drama. Furthermore, rivalries between opera and drama play a role in drama theories from the 17th to the 19th centuries, with both opera and drama sometimes being referred to as the actual  drama. Since the 20th century, (fiction) film has increasingly been portrayed as the actual drama or, compared to the stage dramas, more topical drama (see film theory). In the 19th century, Gustav Freytag tried to replace the foremost social distinctions between the forms of dramatic representation with a more neutral demarcation between "closed and open form". This again met a time of the work-immanent interpretation since around 1950, which endeavored to focus the theories of drama on "content". In the meantime, the historical theories of drama are again being tried to be understood as social and political expressions - with  the aim of setting themselves apart or asserting their own validity. In the theater theory of the last few decades, the notion that theater is not primarily seen as a drama has gained influence (see performativity, post-dramatic theater). The political and social significance of drama theories has been replaced by media theories and media criticism since the end of the 20th century. In the continuation of Horace's rule-poetic approach, which up to Gottsched (attempt at critical poetry before the Germans, 1730) and Freytag ("Die Technik des Dramas", 1863) served to formulate normative laws for the drama text  and the division into five Raised to the design principle of the drama, the classic division of the drama into five acts has become commonplace, which was initially not mentioned in Aristotle's theory of drama. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that there was more and more acceptance that normative poetics of rules, as developed in the tradition of Horace, did not do justice to the diverse forms of drama and that a descriptive theory of drama had to take its place based on the laws of the individual drama determined analytically.