John Lyly was the master of the private theatre stage in the 1570s and 1580s, and this play represents his individual Euphuistic style. It is a love comedy, mimicking Queen Elizabeth's court, and retelling an ancient legend of the prolonged sleep of the man with whom the moon fell in love.
Written in the aftermath of hostile criticism of Ghosts, Ibsen's three plays all deal with the moral courage needed to tell the truth. They are peopled not by symbolic figures and abstract concepts, but by complex individuals pitted against, or part of, a society that Ibsen felt was morally abhorrent and claustrophobically provincial.
When Dr Stockmann discovers that the water in the small Norwegian town in which he is the resident physician has been contaminated, he does what any responsible citizen would do: reports it to the authorities.
When a deranged boy, Alan Strang, blinds six horses with a metal spike he is sentenced to psychiatric treatment. Dr Dysart is the man given the task of uncovering what happened the night Strang committed his crime, but in doing so will open up his own wounds. This work uses an act of violence to explore faith and insanity.
Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. But Death is close behind, and time is running out. One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives.
Everyman and Mankind are morality plays that mark the turn of the medieval period to the early modern, with their focus on the individual. Both plays are modernised here with full on-page commentaries, a detailed, illustrated introduction and all the scholarly qualities associated with Arden editions
Then the noise of pebbles and mud that horses make when drinking. Till the horse had finished drinking or the driver deemed it had drunk its fill.Edited by Christopher Ricks
Part of a series of Spenser's great work, this title includes a general introduction, annotation, note on the text, bibliography, glossary, and an index of characters. It also contains Spenser's Letter to Raleigh and a short Life of Spenser.
Travelling from America to Britain to a remote Greek island, this play explores the relationship between faith and capitalism and asks fundamental questions about the true meaning of love.
A genre-defying drama--part play, part prose, pure poetry that tells the story of bereaved parents setting out to reach their lost children. It begins in a small village, in a kitchen, where a man announces to his wife that he is leaving, embarking on a journey in search of their dead son.
This text is Brecht's series of 24 inter-connected playlets that describe events which took place in German households before his own exile in 1936. They describe the suspicion and anxiety experienced by people as the power of Hitler grew.
The five plays in this collection are Everyman in his Humour, the tragedy Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. They represent the full range and complexity of Jonson's art as a playwright. The text is the modernized version of Herford and Simpson's edition (OUP 1925-52), with full annotation.