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soap opera [soap opera 词源字典]: soap opera: [20] The original soap operas were a radio phenomenon, in 1930s America. Serial dramas dealing with humdrum-butoccasionally- melodramatic domestic life were as common then as they are on television now, and several of those on the commercial US networks were sponsored by soap manufacturers. A writer on the Christian Century in 1938 said ‘These fifteen-minute tragedies…I call the “soap tragedies”…because it is by the grace of soap I am allowed to shed tears for these characters who suffer so much from life’.

The soap connection soon linked up with horse opera, a mildly derisive term for a Western movie that had been around since the 1920s, to produce soap opera (a later coinage on the same model was space opera). The abbreviated version soap is recorded as early as 1943.
[soap opera etymology, soap opera origin, 英语词源]
Faustian (adj.): 1870, in reference to Johann Faust (c. 1485-1541), German wandering astrologer and wizard, who was reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil. Fantastic tales of his life were told as early as the late 16c., and he was the hero of dramas by Marlowe and Goethe. The Latinized form of his name, faustus, means "of favorable omen."
kabuki (n.): 1896, from Japanese, popular theater (as opposed to shadow puppet-plays or lyrical Noh dramas), literally "art of song and dance," from ka "song" + bu "dance" + ki "art, skill" [Barnhart, OED]. Alternative etymology (in Webster's) is from nominal form of kabuku "to be divergent, to deviate," from early opinion of this form of drama. Since c. 1650, all parts are played by males.
knight (n.): Old English cniht "boy, youth; servant, attendant," common West Germanic (cognates: Old Frisian kniucht, Dutch knecht, Middle High German kneht "boy, youth, lad," German Knecht "servant, bondman, vassal"), of unknown origin. The plural in Middle English sometimes was knighten. Meaning "military follower of a king or other superior" is from c. 1100. Began to be used in a specific military sense in Hundred Years War, and gradually rose in importance until it became a rank in the nobility 16c. The chess piece so called from mid-15c. Knight in shining armor in figurative sense is from 1917, from the man who rescues the damsel in distress in romantic dramas (perhaps especially "Lohengrin"). Knights of Columbus, society of Catholic men, founded 1882 in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.; Knights of Labor, trade union association, founded in Philadelphia, 1869; Knights of Pythias, secret order, founded in Washington, 1864.
melodrama (n.): 1784 (1782 as melo drame), "a stage-play in which songs were interspersed and music accompanied the action," from French mélodrame (18c.), from Greek melos "song" (see melody) + French drame "drama" (see drama). Meaning "a romantic and sensational dramatic piece with a happy ending" is from 1883, because this was often the form of the original melodramas. Also from French are Spanish melodrama, Italian melodramma, German melodram. Related: Melodramatize.
The melodramatist's task is to get his characters labelled good & wicked in his audience's minds, & to provide striking situations that shall provoke & relieve anxieties on behalf of poetic justice. [Fowler]
opera (n.): "a drama sung" [Klein], 1640s, from Italian opera, literally "a work, labor, composition," from Latin opera "work, effort" (Latin plural regarded as feminine singular), secondary (abstract) noun from operari "to work," from opus (genitive operis) "a work" (see opus). Defined in "Elson's Music Dictionary" as, "a form of musical composition evolved shortly before 1600, by some enthusiastic Florentine amateurs who sought to bring back the Greek plays to the modern stage."
No good opera plot can be sensible. ... People do not sing when they are feeling sensible. [W.H. Auden, 1961]
As a branch of dramatic art, it is attested from 1759. First record of opera glass "small binoculars for use at the theater" is from 1738. Soap opera is first recorded 1939, as a disparaging reference to daytime radio dramas sponsored by soap manufacturers.