Eight Great Tragedies: The Complete Texts of the World's Great Tragedies from Ancient Times to the Twentieth Century

By Sylvan Barnet

Book Overview

Presenting the complete texts of eight of the world's greatest plays, this important volume illuminates the changing concept of tragedy from Sophocles to O'Neill.

Some of the world's greatest dramas unfold on these pages. In the powerful and famous plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes, Oedipus makes his disastrous marriage, Prometheus struggles against Zeus to break his painful chains, and the Love Goddess, Aphrodite, takes her revenge on the Theban prince who slighted her. Shakespeare's King Lear suffers at the hands of his two evil daughters. The great Scandinavian dramatists Ibsen and Strindberg fearlessly present stories of infidelity and social disease, while Desire under the Elms, Eugene O'Neill's savage picture of primitive desires in modern New England, rounds out this excellent anthology. Including important essays by noteworthy critics and philosophers, this book is an ideal companion to the editors' Eight Great Comedies.

Featured Plays:
Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus)
Oedipus the King (Sophocles)
Hippolytus (Euripedes)
King Lear (William Shakespeare)
Ghosts (Henrik Ibsen)
Miss Julie (August Strindberg)
On Baile's Strand (William Butler Yeats)
Desire under the Elms (Eugene O'Neill)

Also includes essays by Aristotle, Hume, Emerson, Tillyard, Richards, and Krutch.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452011728
• ISBN13: 9780452011724
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

world's greatest dramas with superb critical essays

Great tragedies afford men insights into mysteries otherwise unfathomed. This unusual volume reveals a panorama of one of literature's great dramatic art forms--the tragedy--as it has developed from Sophocles' time in Greece to the twentieth century of Eugene O'Neill. It provides penetrating insight into the nature of tragedy and the changing points of view held by eminent dramatists through the ages. Some of the world's greatest dramas unfold on these pages. The three editors of the book hold PhD's from Harvard University and now teach in colleges.