Drama & Plays

Read Shakespeare's plays in all their brilliance--and understand what every word means!

Don't be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard's plays accessible and enjoyable.

Each No Fear guide contains:

The complete text of the original play

A line-by-line translation that puts the words into everyday language

A complete list of characters, with descriptions

Plenty of helpful commentary

One of Moliere's most frequently performed plays, "Tartuffe" has been skillfully rendered into English in brilliant rhymed couplets by Richard Wilbur, who won a share of the Bollingen Translation Prize for his much-acclaimed translation of this satiric turn on religious hypocrisy.

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order
to evoke the poetry of the originals.

Collected here for the first time in the series are four major works by Euripides all set in Athens: Hippoltos, translated by Robert Bagg, a dramatic interpretation of the tragedy of Phaidra; Suppliant Women, translated by Rosanna Warren and Steven Scully, a powerful examination of the human
psyche; Ion, translated by W. S. Di Piero and Peter Burian, a complex enactment of the changing relations between the human and divine orders; and The Children of Herakles, translated by Henry Taylor and Robert A. Brooks, a descriptive tale of the descendants of Herakles and their journey home.
These four tragedies were originally avialble as single volumes. This volume retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combines glossary and Greek line numbers.

Aeschylus' Oresteia, the only ancient tragic trilogy to survive, is one of the great foundational texts of Western culture. It begins with Agamemnon, which describes Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War and his murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, continues with her murder by their son Orestes in Libation Bearers, and concludes with Orestes' acquittal at a court founded by Athena in Eumenides. The trilogy thus traces the evolution of justice in human society from blood vengeance to the rule of law, Aeschylus' contribution to a Greek legend steeped in murder, adultery, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and endless intrigue. This new translation is faithful to the strangeness of the original Greek and to its enduring human truth, expressed in language remarkable for poetic intensity, rich metaphorical texture, and a verbal density that modulates at times into powerful simplicity. The translation's precise but complicated rhythms honor the music of the Greek, bringing into unforgettable English the Aeschylean vision of a world fraught with spiritual and political tensions.