Combined in this volume are three of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s most loved works. “The School for Scandal” is Sheridan’s classic comedy that pokes fun at London upper class society in the late 1700s. Often referred to as a “comedy of manners”, “The School for Scandal” is one Sheridan’s most performed plays and a classic of English comedic drama. “The Rivals” was Sheridan’s first play and while at first it was not well received it would go on to ...
First performed in Paris in 1677, Jean Racine’s “Phaedra” is the tenth of twelve plays by the author and his last to be based on Greek mythology. Racine, the famed French dramatist and master of dodecasyllabic alexandrine, the 12-syllable poetic meter, was a contemporary of Moliere and Corneille. This classic story concerns its titular character, who though married to Theseus, the King of Athens, falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’ son from ...
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known commonly as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He is most noted for developing a new type of drama, the Senecan tragedy, which differed greatly from Greek tragedy. While the Greek tragedies were expansive and periodic, Senecan tragedies are more succinct and balanced. In Senecan tragedy, characters do not undergo much change, there is little or no cat ...
This collection of plays by Swedish playwright and writer, August Strindberg, are a testimony to his title as “the father of modern literature” in Sweden, as well as to his distinction as one of the most important playwrights of the 20th century. Beginning with two of his popular, early plays, “The Father” and “Miss Julie”, this edition explores Strindberg’s crucial transition from Naturalism to Modernism, concluding with “The Dance of Death”, “ ...
J. M. Synge, an Irish poet, playwright, and prose writer, was also one of the cofounders of the storied Abbey Theatre. Synge was known as a strange and enigmatic man, quiet and reserved, not even understood by his own family members. After graduating from school, Synge decided to pursue music, but his shy nature prevented him from performing, causing him to turn to literature as a creative outlet. When it opened at the Abbey Theatre in 1907, his ...
John Webster’s “The Duchess of Malfi” is a macabre and tragic play written between 1612 and 1613. Misuse of power, revenge, deception, cruelty, and corruption are among the many themes that run throughout this work. The work is set in the court of Malfi, in reality Amalfi in Italy, and concerns the story of the titular Duchess who is recently widowed and falls in love with Antonio, a lowly steward. However the Duchess’ family, wishing her to not ...
“Spring Awakening” is German playwright’s Frank Wedekind’s controversial and shocking drama of sexuality and repression. First performed in 1906 in Berlin, though written by Wedekind several years earlier, the play focuses on the lives on several adolescents coming of age in late nineteenth century Germany. Three teenage boys, Melchior, Moritz, and Wendl, and girls Wendla and Martha, struggle with abuse, a lack of information and acceptance, and ...
Originally published in 1898 and performed for the first time in Moscow in 1899, “Uncle Vanya” is widely considered one of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s most important dramas. It is the tale of the visit of Serebryakov, a retired professor and his new, young wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that had belonged to Serebyrakov’s late first wife and that supports the couple in their urban lifestyle. The estate is run by Serebryakov’s adult unma ...
First performed in 1773, “She Stoops to Conquer” is the timeless comedic drama by Anglo-Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. The play depicts the story of Charles Marlow, a wealthy young man who is promised in marriage to a woman, Kate Hardcastle, that he has never met. While he is eager to meet her and is travelling to her home with his friend, George Hastings, Charles is quite shy in the company of women of wealth. He prefers those of a lower class ...