Showing titles in Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature

The title Works and Days suggests a laboring routine lived over and over every day. Ancient Greek poet Hesiod published this farmer's almanac around 700 BC as an instruction in the agricultural arts. On a deeper level, Hesiod binds together two mythological etiologies as a symbol for the hardship that defines the human condition: the story of Prometheus and Pandora and Myth of Five Ages.

Odnoobraznuju zhizn' provincial'nogo gorodka Verhopol'e narushaet priezd stroitelej zheleznoj dorogi - inzhenerov Cherkuna i Cyganova. Na smenu patriarhal'nomu varvarstvu gorodskogo golovy Redozubova jeti "poborniki civilizacii" nesut novoe varvarstvo: moral'nuju degradaciju i zhestokoe ravnodushie k cheloveku. Potrebovalos' nemnogo vremeni, chtoby obnaruzhilis' plody ih razrushitel'noj dejatel'nosti.

Spektakl' "Dachniki" po odnoimjonnoj p'ese Maksima Gor'kogo, literaturnyj psevdonim Alekseja Maksimovicha Peshkova (1868 - 1936), napisannoj im v 1904 godu. Spektakl' o russkoj intelligencii, besedujushhej na filosofskie temy za chashkoj chaja na dache nakanune revoljucii 1905 goda. Vneshnjaja legkost' poludennyh progulok i besed skryvaet vpolne sebe tragediju russkogo obshhestva.

Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is one of the most popular tales of personal redemption in world literature, and has been adapted many times for presentation on film and on stage.

The Wild Duck (Vilanden) is a tragedy with comic episodes. Ibsen himself characterized the play as a tragicomedy. It depicts ordinary life realistically instead of romantically and sentimentally, a revolutionary concept in Ibsen's time. The play is now generally acknowledged as one of Ibsen's supreme accomplishments.

Nachdem sich König Ödipus in die Verbannung schicken ließ, entbrannte zwischen seinen Söhnen Eteokles und Polyneikes ein erbitterter Streit um das Königreich, der beide Brüder ebenfalls das Leben kostete. Daraufhin besteigt Antigones Onkel, König Kreon, den Thron. Den stets heimattreuen Eteokles lässt er würdevoll beisetzen, während die Überreste von Polyneikes den Tieren vorgeworfen werden.

König Laios von Theben wird orakelt, dass er von seinem eigenen Sohn, Ödipus, erschlagen wird. Daraufhin setzt er ihn aus. Ein Knecht bringt ihn zu seinen Zieheltern Polybos und Merobe. Als das Orakel Ödipus, der nicht weiß, dass Polybos und Merobe seine Zieheltern sind, mitteilt, dass er seinen Vater töten und mit seiner Mutter ein Kind zeugen wird, verlässt Ödipus seine Eltern. Er begegnet Laios als Fremden und tötet ihn im Kampf.

Der Dichter selbst verspricht: "Wir werden sicheren Liebesgenuss und erlaubte Heimlichkeiten besingen, und in meinem Gedicht wird kein Verbrechen gelehrt." Ob das 2000 Jahre alte Lehrgedicht über die Liebe heutzutage noch praktisch hilfreich ist, müssen Jüngere beurteilen. Die ältere Generation mag jedenfalls ihr ästhetisches Vergnügen daran haben. Oder wird man mich schelten, weil ich ein Frauenbild verbreiten helfe, das so gar nicht in unsere Zeit passt (und das ja auch gar nicht meines ist)?

Storm in the Village, Miss Read, Headmistress of Fairacre School, learns of a proposed new housing development that soon has the citizens of Fairacre up in arms. In The Fairacre Festival, after a storm damages the church roof, the villagers must raise money for repairs.

This BBC Radio production stars much-loved actor and comedian Lenny Henry, who won the Evening Standard’s Best Newcomer Award for his stunning performance as the tortured Moor. First performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, it subsequently toured the country before arriving in London’s West End where Henry received rave reviews.

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished king, after years of wandering, accompanied by his faithful daughter Antigone, finds himself in Athens. Receiving a warm if guarded welcome from Theseus, King of Athens, he prepares to settle himself to spend his last days in peace. However, unwelcome visitors from his tortured past continue to haunt him until the very end.

Among the finest poets of ancient Greece was Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, who lived in the eighth century B.C. It is still a matter of dispute whether Homer or Hesiod was the earlier poet, and sometimes whether they were one and the same person! At any rate, Hesiod's incredible poetry serves as a major source for our understanding of Greek mythology, farming practices, time keeping and astronomy. In and of itself, the "Works and Days" is unparalleled in its richness and beauty, easily rivaling Homer.

A collection of four of Chekhov's most popular dramas together with his unusual one-act comedy, The Boor, presented by members of The Online Stage.

The Online Stage presents Shakespeare’s most famous and most quoted play, a revenge drama which explores the inevitable conflict between conscience and justice, between morality and obligation. The tragedy arises, not from an obvious weakness in the character of Hamlet, but rather from his inability to deal with an apparently insoluble moral dilemma.

Sappho was a female poet who was well known in ancient Greece and Rome for her lyrical poetry. She was most famous for her poems involving women who loved women, and it is from her name that sapphic, a term referring to sexual relations between women, originated. This is a compendium of her surviving work, a collection of 54 fragments translated by Henry de Vere Stacpoole.

After a century of civil strife in Rome and Italy, the poet Virgil wrote The Aeneid to honor the emperor Augustus by praising Aeneas, Augustus's legendary ancestor. As a patriotic epic imitating Homer, The Aeneid also set out to provide Rome with a literature equal to that of Greece.

Ovid’s sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation, often as a result of love or lust, in which men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the...

Dem König Laios wird geweissagt, sein Sohn werde ihn töten und seine Frau heiraten. Um dies zu verhindern, befiehlt er, den Neugeborenen zu töten. Ein Hirte jedoch findet den im Gebirge Ausgesetzten, erbarmt sich seiner - und das Schicksal nimmt seinen Lauf. Ein wahrer Klassiker der griechischen Tragödie.

Antigone, Schwester des Polyneikes, darf ihren Bruder nicht bestatten, weil dieser Krieg gegen die eigene Stadt Theben geführt hat. Doch Antigone übertritt des Tyrannen Kreons Verbot - mit furchtbaren Folgen für sich selbst und andere. Antigone ist wohl die bekannteste klassische Tragödie - und auch heute noch vielgespielt. Mit dabei: Ein pdf-Dokument mit Titelliste.