A melodrama is a dramatic or literary work in which the plot, which is typically sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions, takes precedence over detailed characterisation. Characters are often simply drawn, and may appear stereotyped. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, melodramas are dramas of the 18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, movies, and television and radio broadcasts. In modern contexts, the term "melodrama" is generally pejorative, as it suggests that the work in question lacks subtlety, character development, or both. By extension, language or behavior which resembles melodrama is often called melodramatic; this use is nearly always pejorative. The term originated from the early 19th-century French word mélodrame. It is derived from Greek melos, music, and French drame, drama (from Late Latin drāma, eventually deriving from classical Greek δράμα, theatrical plot, usually of a Greek tragedy). so from Melos and drame put it together make Melodrama as we all know today

Read full article on Wikipedia · CC-BY-SA