This comprehensive companion takes these fragments and weaves them into an accessible and enjoyable narrative, guiding the reader through the basic stories of classical myth.Philip Matyszak explains the sequences of events and introduces the major plots and characters, from the origins of the world and the labors of Hercules to the Trojan War and the voyages of Odysseus and Aeneas. He brings to life an exotic cast of heroes and monsters, wronged women and frighteningly arbitrary yet powerful gods. He also shows how the stories have survived and greatly influenced later art and culture, from Renaissance painting and sculpture to modern opera, literature, movies, and everyday products.

    Bibliogs.

    The monkey's cruel incarceration in a cage is avenged when the birds trick the Twits into believing the world has turned upside-down. The Twits join in, aided by the birds who drop glue on their hair, and the audience is encouraged to play their part in freeing the monkeys.

    In the century since its first performance, The Cherry Orchard has undergone a wide range of conflicting interpretations: tragic and comic, naturalistic and symbolic, reactionary and radical. Beginning with the 1904 premiere at Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre, this study traces the performance history of one of the landmark plays of the modern theatre. Considering the work of such directors as Anatoly Efros, Giorgio Strehler, Peter Brook, and Peter Stein, Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard explores the way different artists, periods and cultures have reinvented Chekhov's poignant comedy of failure and hope.

    Leroy Hamilton, the younger man, shocks Frick, a successful businessman in his 60s, by revealing that, though descended from one of the Founding Fathers of the USA, Alexander Hamilton, he is by profession a carpenter.

    His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory. Three years later, he returns home and his murderous action has set the entire family - mother, brother, sister - on a path of intimate violence, as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace's dungeons and bedchambers. As his wife seeks his death, his daughter, Electra, is the silent observer to the family's game of innocence while his son, Orestes, is sent into bewildering, frightening exile where survival is far from certain. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right these wrongs of the past even if it means committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act.House of Names is a story of intense longing and shocking betrayal. It is a work of great beauty, and daring, from one of our finest living writers.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Dante's works available in Penguin Classics are Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, The Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova.

    This newly annotated, free verse translation conveys the full force of Lucan's writing and his grimly realistic view of the subject. The work is a powerful condemnation of civil war, emphasizing the stark, dark horror of the catastrophies which the Roman state inflicted upon itself. Both the introduction and glossary set the scene for readers unfamiliar with Lucan and explore his relationship with earlier writers of Latin epic, and his interest in the sensational.

    The latter, originally a commission for BBC Radio, rendered the classical tale with all the flare, wit and engagement that we have come to expect from this most distinctive of contemporary authors, and in so doing brought Odysseus's return from the Trojan War memorably to life.

    Ireland's most influential poet, Yeats's poems express both powerful personal feelings and something of the whole human dilemma of the 20th century.

    

    The play has been read on Broadway, and has had full-stage productions at The Kennedy Center, The National Theatre in London, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among others. Rita Dove is the author of numerous books of poetry, including the 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Thomas and Beulah. She has served as the Poet Laureate of the United States, and has been awarded both Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, as well as been the recipient of many of our nation's most prestigious literary awards. Rita Dove lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

    H. Auden first published in 1952, and the title work of a collection of poems by Auden, published in 1955. It is Auden's response to the detailed description, or ekphrasis, of the shield borne by the hero Achilles in Homer's epic poem the Iliad.The poem is the title work of The Shield of Achilles, a collection of poems in three parts, published in 1955, containing Auden's poems written from around 1951 through 1954. It begins with the sequence "Bucolics", then miscellaneous poems under the heading "In Sunshine and In Shade", then the sequence Horae Canonicae.It won the U.S. National Book Award for Poetry in 1956.

    What Lochhead does is to recast Medea as an episode—ancient but new, cosmic yet agonizingly familiar—in a sex war which is recognizable to every woman, and most of the men, in the theatre..."—The Scotsman

    But who amongst them all did Krishna love? Who ruled his heart and influenced his life?Not one, but there were eight women whom Krishna married solely on the basis of mutual love and respect. Each of these wives—the Ashtabharyas—contributed to making Krishna what he was. While their names figure in the text of the great epic Mahabharata, not much has been discussed about them. Who are these women and what was that special ‘something’ in each of them that won Krishna over? What were each of those relationships like?Radha Viswanath delves deep into the great Hindu epics, puranas and other ancient texts, weaving nuggets of information with rich imagination to give us a fascinating picture of Krishna’s life with these eight extraordinary women.