Why Drama Ages Better Than Comedy and, Indeed, Barely Ages at All

Unlike comedy, which relies on cultural taboos and social conventions, drama is rooted in existential constants: death, love, guilt, madness, betrayal, and the struggle for meaning. These are not artifacts of a particular era but rather the permanent furniture of the human condition. For this reason, drama endures. It does not merely reflect the world as it is but explores the world as it always has been and always will be.

Dramatic works like The Fall of the House of Usher or King Lear continue to resonate not because of their surface elements—archaic language, outdated settings—but because they confront core psychological and spiritual truths. The decaying mansion in Poe's story is not just a Gothic trope; it is a symbol of mental and familial collapse. Lear's descent into madness is not just political tragedy; it is the unraveling of the self in the face of betrayal and aging.

Moreover, drama's structure is flexible. It can be updated, reinterpreted, and transplanted into new contexts without losing its power. The archetypes it engages—tyrant, martyr, outcast, visionary—are endlessly renewable. This elasticity gives drama a kind of temporal immunity. It doesn't just survive the passage of time; it thrives on it.

Drama, then, is a form of emotional and moral inquiry. It gives shape to dilemmas that are too deep for doctrine and too complex for resolution. That is why, unlike comedy, it does not depend on fashion. It depends on truth.