TRILOGY

a series of three dramas or literary or musical compositions that, although each is in one sense complete, have a close mutual relation and form one theme or develop aspects of one basic concept. The term originally referred specifically to a group of three tragedies written by one author for competition. This trilogy constituted the traditional set of plays presented in Athens by a number of competitors at the 5th-century-BC drama festivals known as the Great Dionysia. One of the first authors to present such a trilogy was Aeschylus, whose Oresteia is the only surviving example from that time. Modern examples of trilogies include J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy.