A melodrama is a work of literature in which extreme emotions and intense action are prioritized over realistic character development. Melodramas often rely on stock characters like heroes and villains.

The word melodrama first appeared in French as mélodrame, deriving from the Greek word melos ("song") and the French word drame ("drama"), which comes from the Greek word drama ("action, spectacle, play"), from drāo (to act, to perform, to do, to make"). 

Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights is often described as melodramatic:

Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you—haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe—I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

- Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

In this quote, Heathcliff passionately expresses his longing and anguish for Catherine, who has passed away. The intense and dramatic language emphasizes the heightened emotions and melodramatic nature of their relationship. Heathcliff's plea to be haunted by Catherine's ghost and his desperate desire for her presence showcases the exaggerated and intense emotions characteristic of melodrama.

see: characterization

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