Tragedy
Electra
Sophocles' play dramatizes the aftermath of Agamemnon's murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. His daughter Electra is hu…
Antigone
This is the final installment in Sophocles' Theban Plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus's daughter Antigone deliber…
Othello
Othello is a tragedy about the downfall of the titular hero, Othello, a Moorish general in the service of Venice. His cunning ensign, Iago, …
Antigone
A powerful artistic protest against tyranny, "Antigone" has been translated and adapted dozens of times, applied over and over thr…
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…
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…
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…
Adrienne Lecouvreur
This drama was written in 1848 for the great French tragedienne, Rachel, by Eugene Scribe and his writing partner, Ernest Legouve. Scribe is…
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…
The Changeling
The Changeling is a sensational 1622 tragicomedy by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley that comprises two intertwining plots. The first inv…
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…
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 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 …
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…
Philoctetes
Sophocles' play recounts an episode from the Trojan War, in which the wily Odysseus and Achilles' son Neoptolemus travel to a remote island …
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…
Mithridates
Another tragedy by Racine, based on the historical character and career of Mithridates circa 63 BCE. Closing with sorrow and lamentation and…
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…
Hamlet
Hamlet is commonly regarded as one of the greatest plays ever written. Drawing on Danish chronicles and the Elizabethan vogue for revenge tr…
Othello
Othello is the story of a cross-cultural romance between the title character, a noble moor who is a general in the Venetian army, and Desdem…