Prose
The word "prose" first appears in English in the 14th century. It is derived from the Old French "prose", which in turn originates in the Latin expression "prosa oratio" (literally, straightforward or direct speech).
Tragedy
Writing in 335 BCE (long after the Golden Age of 5th-century Athenian tragedy), Aristotle provides the earliest-surviving explanation for the origin of the dramatic art form in his "Poetics", in which he argues that tragedy developed from the improvisations of the leader of choral dithyrambs (hymns sung and danced in praise of Dionysos, the god of wine and fertility):
In the same work, Aristotle attempts to provide a scholastic definition of what tragedy is:
There is some dissent to the dithyrambic origins of tragedy, mostly based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested. Friedrich Nietzsche discussed the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872). Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a chorus of goat-like satyrs in the original dithyrambs from which the tragic genre developed.