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Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature. This first part of Faust is not divided into acts, but is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theatre, the actual plot begins with a prologue in Heaven and Scene 1 in Faust's study. (Summary modified from Wikipedia)...

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Literature, Play, Tragedy, Myths/Legends

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Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings. In A Spinner in the Sun she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance (Summary by Summary by Grosset & Dunlap publishers, 1913)...

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Fiction, Play, Mystery, Romance

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“The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.” Milton composes his last extended work as a tragedy according to the classical Unities of Time, Place and Action. Nevertheless it “never was intended for the stage” and is here declaimed by a single reader. Samson the blinded captive, in company with the Chorus of friends and countrymen, receives his visitors on their varying missions and through them his violent story is vividly recalled. Then he is summoned to give a final demonstration of God-given strength to entertain the Philistines, his captors. Famously – and of course, offstage – his performance brings the house down. (Summary by Martin Geeson)...

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Poetry, Play, Literature, Tragedy

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Ceci est une collection de pièces en un acte et de monologues en français. This is a collection of French one-act plays and monologues. (by Jc Guan, translated by Ezwa)...

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Literature, Play, Romance

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volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Where the Bee Sucks by William Shakespeare. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 8, 2012. Where the Bee Sucks is a song performed by Ariel, an airy spirit, in Shakespeare's The Tempest. The Tempest has proved more popular as a subject for composers than most of Shakespeare's plays. Scholar Julie Sanders ascribes this to the perceived 'musicality' or lyricism of the play. Thomas Arne, best known for the patriotic song Rule, Britannia!, set this piece to music....

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Nature, Play, Poetry

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William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, based on true events, concerns the conspiracy against Julius Caesar, his assassination in 44 BC, and its immediate aftermath. Probably written in 1599 and among the first of Shakespeare's plays to be performed at the Globe Theater, Julius Caesar is one of his best-known dramas and has received innumerable performances throughout the centuries. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden after Wikipedia) Cast: Julius Caesar - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=4358>Kim Stich Octavius Caesar - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=3370>Glenn Simonsen Antony - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=3664>Barry Eads Lepidus and Cicero - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=2911>David Lawrence Publius, Poet, and Pindarus - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=4444>Nathan Miller Popilius Lena and First Commoner - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=4435>Andrew Brutus - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=26>Denny Sayers Cassius - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=4402>Christopher Sanner Casca - /newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=1492>mb Trebonius and First Sold...

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Play, Historical Fiction

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The story is about Elinor and Marianne, two daughters of Mr Dashwood by his second wife. They have a younger sister, Margaret, and an older half-brother named John. When their father dies, the family estate passes to John, and the Dashwood women are left in reduced circumstances. The novel follows the Dashwood sisters to their new home, a cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience both romance and heartbreak. The contrast between the sisters' characters is eventually resolved as they each find love and lasting happiness. Through the events in the novel, Elinor and Marianne encounter the sense and sensibility of life and love. In this dramatic reading, volunteers lend their voices to bring Jane Austen's classic story to life. (Summary by Wikipedia and wildemoose)...

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Fiction, Play, Romance

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King Henry IV, Part 1 is the second of Shakespeare’s eight Wars of the Roses history plays, with events following those of King Richard II . As the play opens, King Henry IV (formerly Henry Bolingbroke) and Henry Percy (Hotspur) argue over the disposition of prisoners from the Battle of Holmedon. The King’s attitude toward Mortimer and the Percy family prompts them to plot rebellion. In the meantime, his son Prince Hal is living the low life in the company of Sir John Falstaff. As the time of battle nears, Prince Hal joins his father and is given a high command. The play’s climax is the Battle of Shrewsbury, in which Prince Hal and Hotspur meet and fight, with Prince Hal and the forces of the King prevailing. The action continues in King Henry IV, Part 2 . From the start this has been an extremely popular play both with the public and with critics. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden and Wikipedia)...

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Historical Fiction, Play

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Perhaps most well-known for his fairytales and fantasy stories such as The Golden Key and Phantastes, or for his poetry, George MacDonald was a great spiritual master of the nineteenth century. He spent several years as a minister in his native Scotland; however he was forced to resign his position due to ill health. He had a profound influence on such later writers as G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis – the latter of whom considered MacDonald to be his spiritual father, and edited an anthology of his works. In The Hope of the Gospel, with his ever sagely style, MacDonald explores the essential heart of the gospel that is so often overlooked, both in his day and ours. Dissatisfied with cheap and hasty interpretations of Scripture, MacDonald invites us beneath the surface in a heartfelt meditation on all that Christ came to accomplish. (Summary by Jordan)...

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Play, Fiction

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Pippa Passes was a dramatic piece, as much play as poetry, by Robert Browning published in 1841 as the first volume of his Bells and Pomegranates series. The author described the work as the first of a series of dramatic pieces. His original idea was of a young, innocent girl, moving unblemished through the crime-ridden neighbourhoods of Asolo. The work caused outrage when it was first published, due to the matter-of-fact portrayals of many of the area's more disreputable characters – notably the adulterous Ottima – and for its frankness on sexual matters. Perhaps the most famous passage is below: The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his Heaven - All's right with the world!...

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Poetry, Play

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Die Räuber ist der Titel des ersten veröffentlichten Dramas von Friedrich Schiller. Das Werk, das zunächst nicht als Bühnenstück, sondern als Lesedrama vorgesehen war (siehe unterdrückte Vorrede), sorgte für nationales Aufsehen im Literaturbetrieb und machte Schiller schlagartig berühmt. (Zusammenfassung von Wikipedia) Enthält die Besprechung Die Räuber. Ein Schauspiel von Friedrich Schiller. 1782, und den Anhang über die Vorstellung der Räuber im Wirtembergischen Repertorium 1782, beide von Schiller anonym verfaßt. Der Text folgt der zweiten Auflage von 1782. Sektion 00 - unterdrueckte Vorrede - Vorrede zur zwoten Auflage - Avertissement zu der ersten Auffuehrung: Text (1) Sektion 00 - Vorrede zur ersten Auflage: Text (2) Sektionen 01 - 09 - Schauspiel: Text (3) Sektionen 10 - 12 - Besprechungen im Wirtembergischen Repertorium 1782: Text (1)...

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Literature, Play

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Christopher Kit Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564―30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian before William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own untimely death. The Jew of Malta (1589) is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean. The Jew of Malta is considered to have been a major influence on William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice . The play contains a prologue in which the character Machiavel, a Senecan ghost based on Niccolò Machiavelli, introduces the tragedy of a Jew. Thomas Heywood: The well-known dramatist of the time has included Prologues and Epilogues both for the court and the Cock-Pit theatre ...making choice of you unto whom to devote it; . (summary by David Lawrence)...

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Play, Fiction, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Tragedy

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A small play in three acts. A kind of comic tragedy. The plot tells the story of the interaction between two very different families in rural England just after the end of the First World War. Squire Hillcrist lives in the manor house where his family has lived for generations. He has a daughter, Jill, who is in her late teens; and a wife, Amy, as well as servants and retainers. He is old money, although his finances are at a bit of low ebb. The other family is the nouveau riche Hornblowers, headed by the single-minded and rich industrialist Hornblower, who throws old retainers the Jackmans out of their home (much to the Squire's disgust), and who plans to surround the Hillcrist's rural estate with factories. (Summary by catrose and Wikipedia)...

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Play, Fiction, Tragedy, Comedy

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Agnes Grey is the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn money to care for herself, she takes one of the few jobs allowed to respectable women in the early Victorian era, as a governess to the children of the wealthy. In working with two different families, the Bloomfields and the Murrays, she comes to learn about the troubles that face a young woman who must try to rein in unruly, spoiled children for a living, and about the ability of wealth and status to destroy social values. After her father's death, Agnes opens a small school with her mother and finds happiness with a man who loves her for herself....

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Fiction, Play, Romance

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The Reign of King Edward the Third is an Elizabethan play printed anonymously in 1596. It has frequently been claimed that it was at least partly written by William Shakespeare, a view that Shakespeare scholars have increasingly endorsed. The rest of the play was probably written by Thomas Kyd. The play contains many gibes at Scotland and the Scottish people, which has led some critics to think that it is the work that incited George Nicolson, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Edinburgh, to protest against the portrayal of Scots on the London stage in a 1598 letter to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. This would explain why the play was not included in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603. The plot of the play consists of two distinct parts. The first is centred on the Countess of Salisbury (the wife of the Earl of Salisbury), who, beset by rampaging Scots, is rescued by King Edward III, who then proceeds to woo her himself. In an attempted bluff, the Countess vows to take the life of her husband if Edward will take the life of his wife. However, w...

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Play, Literature, Poetry, Historical Fiction

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The play begins years after Oedipus has taken the throne of Thebes. The Theban chorus cries out to him for salvation from the plague sent by the gods in response to Laius's murder. Oedipus searches for the murderer, unaware that he himself is guilty of that crime. The blind prophet Teiresias is called upon to aid the search, but, after his warning against following through with it, Oedipus oppugns him as the murderer, even though he is blind and aged. In response, an angry Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is looking for himself, causing the king to become enraged in incredulity. He then accuses the prophet of conspiring with Creon, Jocasta's brother, to overthrow him. Oedipus calls for one of Laius's former servants, the only surviving witness of the murder, who fled the city when Oedipus became king in order to avoid being the one to reveal the truth. Soon a messenger from Corinth arrives to inform the king of the death of Polybus, whom Oedipus still believes to be his real father. At this point, the messenger informs him that he was in fact adopted and that his true parentage is unknown. In the subsequent discussions between Oedipus...

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Myths/Legends, Play, Literature, Poetry