Tragedy
The Master Builder
Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, first published in 1892, is about architect Halvard Solness, who despite personal tragedy (including the …
Oedipus Rex
Oedipus Rex, a cornerstone of ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles, explores the harrowing journey of its titular character, Oedipus, as he se…
The Iliad
The Iliad, together with the Odyssey, is one of two ancient Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer. The poem is commonly dated t…
Michael Kohlhaas
Michael Kohlhaas is a powerful novella that explores the depths of justice and the human spirit through the story of a horse dealer in 16th-…
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production d…
Orestes
In accordance with the advice of the god Apollo, Orestes has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon at h…
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus may be Shakespeare's earliest tragedy; it is believed to have been written in the early 1590s. It depicts a Roman general w…
Prometheus Bound
"Prometheus Bound" is the only complete tragedy of the Prometheia trilogy, traditionally assumed to be the work of Aeschylus. Jupi…
Alcestis
Alcestis, queen of Pherae, is one of the noblest heroines in all of Greek drama. Her husband Admetus is the supposedly virtuous king of Pher…
Philoctetes
Philoctetes is a play by Sophocles (Aeschylus and Euripides also each wrote a Philoctetes but theirs have not survived). The play was writte…
The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
Perhaps no play in William Shakespeare's body of work is more divisive than his first tragedy Titus Andronicus, wherein the titular Roman ge…
Women Beware Women
Thomas Middleton's masterful 17th century tragedy is packed with adultery, incest, intrigue, revenge, and inventive methods for murder. Lean…
Hecuba
Like Euripides' Trojan Women, this play takes place after the sack of Troy. Hecuba, widow of King Priam, suffers the loss of her daughter Po…
Seven Against Thebes
Seven against Thebes is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to …
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is a tragic novel by English author Thomas Hardy subtitled, "The Life and Death of a Man of Character&…
The Spanish Tragedy
The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and inf…
Trachiniai
Women of Trachis (Ancient Greek: Τραχίνιαι, Trachiniai; also translated as The Trachiniae or The Trachinian Maidens) is an Athenian tragedy …
Hamlet
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge…
Medea
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BCE. The plot cente…
The Trojan Women
Described by modern playwright Ellen McLaughlin as "perhaps the greatest antiwar play ever written," "The Trojan Women,"…