Tragedy
Oroonoko
Based on Aphra Behn's 1688 novel (which is one of the earliest novels in the English language), Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko is seen by schol…
Troades
Troades (or The Trojan Women) is a Latin verse drama by Seneca the Younger. It is partly based on Euripedes' tragedy of the same name.The lo…
Little Eyolf
Henrik Ibsen's 1894 play Little Eyolf tells the story of the Allmers family: the father, Alfred, his wife Rita, their crippled nine-year-old…
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…
Iphigenia
Racine's version of the time-honored story of Iphigenia was acted for the first time in 1674. The model upon which it is shaped is the "…
Creditors
Creditors is a thought-provoking tragicomedy by August Strindberg that explores the complexities of love, betrayal, and the human psyche. Se…
The Thebaid
"The reign of Louis XIV. in France, like the age of Pericles at ancient Athens, was remarkable for literary excellence no less than for…
Tristan and Isolde
The Libretto of Richard Wagner's music drama Tristan and Isolde, translated into English by John P Jackson, is here presented as a spoken dr…
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, …
The Broken Heart
The Broken Heart stands next to ‘Tis Pity She's a Whore as Ford's most popular drama. All is not right in Sparta because of, as is typical i…
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…
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is an early tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose "untimely deaths&qu…
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…
Henry IV, A Tragedy
A talented actor and historian falls off his horse in a historical pageant while playing the role of Henry IV. When he comes to, he believes…
Paolo and Francesca
The tragic and adulterous story of Paolo and Francesca was originally immortalized by Dante in his "Divine Comedy". Since then, t…
Mithridates
Another tragedy by Racine, based on the historical character and career of Mithridates circa 63 BCE. Closing with sorrow and lamentation and…
Philoctetes
Sophocles' play recounts an episode from the Trojan War, in which the wily Odysseus and Achilles' son Neoptolemus travel to a remote island …
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…
The Maid's Tragedy
Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy (first published 1619) is a sensational Jacobean sex tragedy. When gentleman soldier Melantius re…
Esther
Esther — the first of Racine's two sacred dramas — is a tragedy in the Aristotelian acceptation of the term, as being concerned with a great…