Writing at a time when Athens was undergoing a crisis in its social attitudes, Aristophanes was undergoing a crisis in its social attitudes, Aristophanes was an eloquent opponent of the demagogue and the sophist, and his comedy reveals a deep sympathy and longing for the return of a peaceful and honest way of life.

    

    1999 - In a world of scientific chaos, cloning and genetic engineering, the cellar of the same house reveals a dark secret buried for 200 years.

    It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama. Manfred was adapted musically by Robert Schumann in 1852, in a composition entitled Manfred: Dramatic Poem with music in Three Parts, and later by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his Manfred Symphony, Op. 58, as well as by Carl Reinecke. Friedrich Nietzsche was impressed by the poem's depiction of a super-human being, and wrote some music for it. Byron wrote this "metaphysical drama", as he called it, after his marriage failed in scandal amidst charges of sexual improprieties and an incestuous affair between Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Attacked by the press and ostracized by London society, Byron fled England for Switzerland in 1816 and never returned. Because Manfred was written immediately after this and because Manfred regards a main character tortured by his own sense of guilt for an unmentionable offense, some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional.The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. Byron commenced this work in late 1816, only a few months after the famed ghost-story sessions which provided the initial impetus for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The supernatural references are made clear throughout the poem. In one scene, for example, (Act III, Scene IV, Interior of the Tower), Manfred recalls traveling through time (or astral projection traveling) to Caesar's palace, "and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries...".

    Is it possible? An unfrocked monk against us Leads rascal troops, a truant friar dares write Threats to us! Then 'tis time to tame the madman! Trubetskoy, set thou forth, and thou Basmanov; My zealous governors need help. Chernigov Already by the rebel is besieged; Rescue the city and citizens.

    At first the Sycamore family seems mad, but it is not long before we realize that if they are mad, the rest of the world is really verklempt.

    . . And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."Such was Donald Rumsfeld's response on April 11, 2003, following the infamous looting and pillaging of Baghdad. In David Hare's powerful new play chronicling the extraordinary process leading to the American invasion of Iraq, this statement provides entrée into the melee of diplomacy, political power, and terrorist vendetta still making headlines around the world. Using direct quotes meticulously culled from interviews and public appearances, combined with the playwright's nuanced reimagining of what went on behind closed doors, Hare has fashioned a historical narrative and human drama that presents the Iraqi conflict in all of its haphazard notoriety. Stuff Happens uses a uniquely evenhanded approach to a deeply contested invasion--seen from the perspective of international leaders and journalists, as well as Iraqi refugees--and raises a series of provocative questions regarding the most heartfelt and manipulative machinations of domestic and international politik.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Set in the seventeenth century, it tells the story of a country and a family riven by war, and features one of fiction's most original heroines.Honor Harris is only eighteen when she first meets Richard Grenvile, proud, reckless - and utterly captivating. But following a riding accident, Honor must reconcile herself to a life alone. As Richard rises through the ranks of the army, marries and makes enemies, Honor remains true to himAs the English Civil war is waged across the country, Richard rises through the ranks of the army, marries and makes enemies, and Honor remains true to him, and finally discovers the secret of Menabilly.Decades later, an undaunted Sir Richard, now a general serving King Charles I, finds her. Finally they can share their passion in the ruins of her family's great estate on the storm-tossed Cornish coast-one last time before being torn apart, never to embrace again.

    It's in the collisions between pious and rogue thoughts that the play's energy lies. We don't know what to feel. Which is why, once seen, Joe Egg won't go away.'Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday (1993)

    The struggle of the self to remain intact has moved in her work from civil war, into the family, into the couple, into the individual, and finally into the theatre of phychosis: the mind itself. This play was written in 1999 shortly before the playwright took her own life at age 28. On the page, the piece looks like a poem. No characters are named, and even their number is unspecified. It could be a journey through one person's mind, or an interview between a doctor and his patient.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Under the editorship of Herbert Golder and the late William Arrowsmith, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. Produced more frequently on the ancient stage than any other tragedy, Orestes retells with striking innovations the story of the young man who kills his mother to avenge her murder of his father. Though eventually exonerated, Orestes becomes a fugitive from the Furies (avenging spirits) of his mother's blood. On the brink of destruction, he is saved in the end by Apollo, who had commanded the matricide. Powerful and gripping, Orestes sweeps us along with a momentum that starting slowly, builds inevitably to one of the most spectacular climaxes in all Greek tragedy.

    In The Maids, two domestic workers, deeply resentful of their inferior social position, try to revenge themselves against society by destroying their employer. When their attempt to betray their mistress's lover to the police fails and they are in danger of being found out, they dream of murdering Madame, little aware of the true power behind their darkest fantasy.In the second play Deathwatch, two convicts try to impress a third, who is on the verge of achieving legendary status in criminal circles. But neither realizes the lengths to which they will go to gain respect or that, in the end, nothing they can do--including murder--will get them what they are searching for.

    . . . A tragic and hilarious vision of life in an English country community. Butterworth’s new work was the most talked about new work of the season."—The London Paper