melodrama vs tear-jerker

melodrama

noun
  • A drama abounding in romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic. In opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive accompaniment, while the actor speaks 

  • Any situation or action which is blown out of proportion. 

tear-jerker

How often have the words melodrama and tear-jerker occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )