Tragedy
The Oresteia
The Oresteia is a trilogy by Aeschylus, one of the foremost playwrights of ancient Greece. It encompasses three plays: Agamemnon, The Libati…
Electra
Sophocles' play dramatizes the aftermath of Agamemnon's murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. His daughter Electra is hu…
Ion
This drama, set in Ancient Greece, was written by a Victorian lawyer who was a close friend of Charles Dickens. When collected into book for…
Antigone
This is the final installment in Sophocles' Theban Plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus's daughter Antigone deliber…
Cato
Joseph Addison is known mostly for his periodical, "The Spectator", written with his friend Richard Steele. But he found time to w…
Pierre and Luce
Pierre and Luce were an unlikely young pair who found themselves in the chaos of Paris during the war; Pierre, the shy, recently conscripted…
A Florentine Tragedy
Two short fragments: an unfinished and a lost play. A Florentine Tragedy, left in a taxi (not a handbag), is Wilde’s most successful attempt…
Iphigenia in Aulis
Iphigenia in Aulis (Ancient Greek: Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Αὐλίδι) is the last extant work of the playwright Euripides. Written between 408, after the …
Andromache
In this tragedy [about part of the aftermath of the Trojan War], which made its appearance in 1667, there is a more intricate plot than is u…
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…
Cain
Cain: A Mystery is Lord Byron's retelling of the classical Biblical story from the point of view of its antagonist. Undoubtedly influenced b…
The History of Troilus and Cressida
The History of Troilus and Cressida has long baffled critics and audiences alike for its inconsistent tone, which ranges from bawdy comedy t…
The Changeling
The Changeling is a sensational 1622 tragicomedy by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley that comprises two intertwining plots. The first inv…
Hamlet
Hamlet is commonly regarded as one of the greatest plays ever written. Drawing on Danish chronicles and the Elizabethan vogue for revenge tr…
The Duchess of Padua
Guido Ferranti, a young man, travels to Padua with his friend Ascanio after receiving a mysterious letter from a stranger, claiming to know …
Life is a Dream
Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño) is a Spanish-language verse drama by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. First published in 1636, t…
The Father
The Father is a naturalistic drama by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The central conflict is between the Captain and his wife Laura a…
Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler has just returned from her honeymoon. She has married out of ennui, and is already heartily sick of her husband, who is a plodd…
Dido, Queen of Carthage
Dido, Queen of Carthage is the earliest of Christopher Marlowe's known plays, possibly written while he was still a student at Corpus Christ…
Mithridates
Another tragedy by Racine, based on the historical character and career of Mithridates circa 63 BCE. Closing with sorrow and lamentation and…