This stunning translation by award-winning poet, Robin Robertson, reinvigorates Euripides' masterpiece. Updated for contemporary readers, Robertson brings the ancient verse to fervid, brutal life, revealing a work of art as devastating and relevant today as it was in the fifth century BC.

Blinded and disgraced, Oedipus dwells quietly in Thebes until the kingdom is roiled by discord attributed to his presence and the curse put upon him by the gods. The citizens banish their erstwhile sovereign to years of lonely exile. Finally, the aging king finds refuge in a sacred olive grove at Colonus, near Athens. Oedipus is a towering tragic figure whose final years comprise a moving portrayal of the perseverance of human dignity in the face...

One of the lesser known plays of the Greek tragedian Sophocles, "Electra" tells the tale of a young daughter's revenge for her father's death. Electra is one of the daughters of "Agamemnon," the leader of the Greeks during the Trojan War. He was killed by his wife's lover, and Electra wishes to avenge Agamemnon with the help of her twin brother Orestes. When she receives word that he is dead, Electra laments and fears she will not be able to avenge...

The innovative dramas of Henrik Ibsen created a sensation among 19th-century audiences with their mordant attacks on social conventions. Among the finest of these ground-breaking works was Ghosts, first performed in 1881. In it, the playwright assailed the hypocrisy of moral codes, offering a daring treatment of such then-taboo issues as infidelity, venereal disease, and illegitimacy. Ibsen substituted the modern scientific idea of heredity

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Gerald Arbuthnot receives a promotion from Lord Illingworth, a worldly politician who has a sordid history of women, one of whom is Gerald's widowed mother. When their connection is revealed, the young man questions his past, present and future aspirations. A Woman of No Importance opens with a high-class party featuring a group of society's most illustrious citizens. In the midst of the event, Gerald Arbuthnot enters and announces his new position...

"Based on historical people and events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions."

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him; of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived complete. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances....

Regarded as one of the foremost playwrights of the nineteenth century, Ibsen tells the story of the idealist Doctor Thomas Stockmann, the medical officer of a recently opened spa in a small town in southern Norway, who finds that the water is seriously contaminated. He notifies members of the community and initially receives support and thanks for the discovery. Threatened by the possible impact of such a revelation, his brother, the town mayor, conspires...

William Shakespeare's hilarious fairy tale (with actual fairies!) of love, magic potions and teenage rebellion, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" might be the most performed play in the history of the English-speaking theatre. The play begins as Athenian Duke Theseus is preparing to wed Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. As they ready for their nuptials, Theseus is asked to settle a dispute between a prominent local citizen Egeus and his headstrong...

"Julius Caesar has become the most powerful man in Rome. Does his power now threaten the very existence of the Republic itself? A conspiracy is hatched, one that will have fatal consequences not only for Caesar and the conspirators but also for the future history of the Ancient World." --Container.