Aeneid

The masterpiece of Rome's greatest poet, Virgil's Aeneid has inspired generations of readers and holds a central place in Western literature. The epic tells the story of a group of refugees from the ruined city of Troy, whose attempts to reach a promised land in the West are continually frustrated by the hostile goddess Juno. Finally reaching Italy, their leader Aeneas is forced to fight a bitter war against the natives to establish the foundations from which Rome is destined to rise. More info...

Each of those plays gives us an eponymous hero who is in some significant way flawed, but for whom we also inevitably feel deep sympathy, whatever his errors or crimes. But in Macbeth Shakespeare has chosen for his tragic hero a man guilty of the most terrible crime imaginable to a Jacobean audience, that of regicide - the murder of a king. Part of the writer's triumph is to succeed in making Macbeth, whose crime we must detest, a man in whom we must also see something of our own darker side, our own potential for evil, so that Malcolm's final judgement on him as a mere 'butcher' seems wholly inadequate, the verdict of someone who does not share the audience's insight into Macbeth's anguished inner world.  More Info...

Often considered the greatest epic in any modern language, Paradise Lost tells the story of the revolt of Satan and his banishment from Heaven and the fall of man and his expulsion from Eden. Writing in blank verse of unsurpassed majesty, Milton demonstrates his genius for imagery and cadence. His style is rich and sonorous, his characterizations are heroic, and his action is cosmic in scale. More info...

King Lear, perhaps Shakespeare's most profoundly searching and disturbing tragedy, is the story of a foolish and self-indulgent king who learns, late in life and after terrible suffering, the value of self-knowledge. The play asks the ancient questions about God and the meaning of pain with uncompromising directness, but provides no reassuring answers... More info...

Hamlet

Hamlet, which dates from 1600-1601, is the first in Shakespeare's great series of four tragedies, the others being Othello (1603), King Lear (1605) and Macbeth (1606). In writing this extraordinary play Shakespeare effectively re-invented tragedy after an interval of roughly two thousand years - we have to go back to the Greek dramatists of 5th century Athens to find anything of comparable depth and maturity. More info...

Shakespeare's Sonnets

 
Every bit as dazzling as the best of his dramas and comedies, Shakespeare's sonnets represent one of the finest bodies of poetry ever penned. And because they are love poems of an extraordinarily personal variety, these timeless sonnets also afford us our most intimate glimpses of the soul behind the genius that was Shakespeare.  More info...

Great Poets of the Romantic Age

With a dynamic spirit, these great English poets made a conscious return to nostalgia and spiritual depth. Each chose a different path, but they are united in a love of moods, impressions, scenes, stories, sights and sounds. In this collection of more than 40 poems are some of the finest and most memorable works in the English language. More info..

A Midsummer Night's Dream must be one of the most enduringly popular of Shakespeare's plays, and it is not difficult to see why: the work blends several kinds of comedy with a powerful atmosphere of magic and mystery and a satisfying set of contrasts - between city and country, reason and imagination, love and infatuation. More info...

Julius Caesar

In Julius Caesar, there are no heroes, only heroic words spoken by men of ambition, arrogance, and jealousy. Yet Julius Caesar is also one of Shakespeare's most popular and polished works, a seamless blend of highly-stylized oratory and penetrating soliloquies that lays bare the innermost workings of the human mind. Here is Shakespeare in his prime, taking the story of history's most notorious assassination and fashioning from it a brilliant and at times chilling indictment of politics by violence and of how even the strongest and noblest of minds can be corrupted by flattery and the lure of power. More info...

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is the play which, in English literature at least, effectively invented the modern love story. Its charm and its power derive from the romantic setting (Verona, an Italian Renaissance city), the youthful innocence and ardour of the lovers, and (perhaps crucially) the excitement and drama created by the opposition which they have to contend with, an opposition which does not simply stem from the older generation but which is starkly present in the feud between their two families and which seems to be supported by the malignity of Fate. The richly realized context of their love is additionally enhanced by (for example) the superbly concrete character of Juliet's old Nurse, who fondly encourages the pair until the 'better' offer of Paris's love comes along. More info...