Tragedy
Saint Augustin
What, indeed, is more romantic than this wandering life of rhetorician and student that the youthful Augustin led, from Thagaste to Carthage…
Hippolytus
Eurpides' tragedy tells of Theseus' chaste son Hippolytus, who refuses to worship Aphrodite in favor of Artemis. Aphrodite gets revenge by c…
Prometheus Bound
Whether or not it was actually written by Aeschylus, as is much disputed, "Prometheus Bound" is a powerful statement on behalf of …
The Oresteia
The Oresteia is a trilogy by Aeschylus, one of the foremost playwrights of ancient Greece. It encompasses three plays: Agamemnon, The Libati…
Rosmersholm
Rosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwor…
Paul and Virginia
Paul and Virginia was first published in 1787. The novel's title characters are very good friends since birth who fall in love, but sadly di…
There are Crimes and Crimes
Maurice, a playwright on the brink of success, feels so confident in his professional future he proposes to Jeanne, his mistress. However, u…
Alexander's Bridge
Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges going through what's known today (but not in 1912) as a m…
The White Devil
John Webster's The White Devil (1612) is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, replete with adultery, murder, ghosts, and violence. The Duke of Brachi…
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is an early tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose "untimely deaths&qu…
Madame Bovary
Published in book form in April 1857, the novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her mea…
The Suppliant Maidens
The Suppliants, also called The Suppliant Maidens, or The Suppliant Women, is a play by Aeschylus. It was probably first performed sometime …
Britannicus
Britannicus is son and heir of the Roman emperor Claudius. However, this does not please Nero, who wants both throne and Britannicus's fianc…
The Tragedy of Mariam
The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) is the first original drama written in English by a woman. Elizabeth Cary drew on Jewish histories by Josephus …
The Revenger's Tragedy
"When the bad bleeds, then is the tragedy good." The Revenger's Tragedy is a bloody Jacobean drama centering on Vindici, whose bel…
Faust I
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal w…
The Persians
This is one of the few Greek tragedies that deals with historical events rather than mythological ones. The elders of the Persian court awa…
Hamlet
Hamlet is commonly regarded as one of the greatest plays ever written. Drawing on Danish chronicles and the Elizabethan vogue for revenge tr…
Antigone
This is the final installment in Sophocles' Theban Plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus's daughter Antigone deliber…
Ghosts
Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts was first published in 1881 and staged in 1882, and like his earlier play A Doll's House, profoundly shocked his conte…