Eight Great Tragedies
by Sylvan Barnet
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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. Â 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. show more 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. Â 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) Â Also includes essays by Aristotle, Hume, Emerson, Tillyard, Richards, and Krutch. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A superb collection of tragedies with selected commentaries that augment the texts. While there are specific editions that offer superior texts for reading and analyzing individual plays, this is helpful for reading and debating a range of tragedies.
Just like the masks of drama feature the mask of comedy, so does it feature the mask of tragedy. Barnet et al. returns with another collection of eight plays, this time they're not all about happy endings. In fact, they aren't about that at all. They're tragedies.
These plays are accompanied by critical essays, much like in Eight Great Comedies, and it allows for a deeper appreciation of the work at hand.
Sure to be appreciated by fans of classic drama, as well as those looking for something new in something old.
These plays are accompanied by critical essays, much like in Eight Great Comedies, and it allows for a deeper appreciation of the work at hand.
Sure to be appreciated by fans of classic drama, as well as those looking for something new in something old.
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Author Information
49+ Works 4,647 Members
Sylvan Saul Barnet was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 11, 1926. During World War II, he served in the Army for two years. He received a bachelor's degree in English from New York University in 1948 and a master's degree in 1950 and a doctorate in 1954 from Harvard University. For the next three decades, he taught freshman writing and show more literature at Tufts University. He wrote or edited numerous textbooks including An Introduction to Literature, A Short Guide to Writing About Literature, A Short Guide to Writing About Art, The Study of Literature: A Handbook of Critical Essays and Terms, and Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument. In the early 1960s, he decided that his students at Tufts University needed an edition of Shakespeare with each play in a separate volume including an introduction and study aids. He presented the idea to editors at the New American Library. The editors approved of the idea and Barnet became the general editor of the Signet Classic Shakespeare series. He was the co-author with William Burto of Zen Ink Paintings, which was published in 1982. He died of cancer on January 11, 2016 at the age of 89. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Poetry
- DDC/MDS
- 808.82 — Literature & rhetoric Literature, rhetoric & criticism Rhetoric and collections of literary texts from more than two literatures Collections of literary texts from more than two literatures Collections of drama
- LCC
- PN6112 .B3 — Language and Literature Literature (General) Literature (General) Collections of general literature Drama
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 441
- Popularity
- 69,142
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.47)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 16
