Oundle School
English
A Guide to Drama.
This guide lists texts in chronological order and we hope it will provide you with titles to help develop your understanding of the developments in drama through the ages. There are links to etexts of some of the plays.
Classical Tragedy
Medieval Drama
Some Shakespeare
Drama to 18th C excluding Shakespeare
Modern Drama
Classical Tragedy
Greek
Oedipus Rex . Sophocles: (Archetypal tragedy; basis for tragic convention)Agamemnon Aeschylus
Medea Euripides
Roman
Agamemnon Seneca (Bloody and gory. Basis for revenge tragedy genre)The Rope Plautus. (A good example of an urban comedy.)
Medieval Drama
This is simply a guide to the early traditions of Drama in England. Students of Chaucer might like to dip into a Mystery play-or even go to see one! They are still performed.Miracle Play Cycles: The
Towneley (Wakefield); The Chester plays; The Coventry Plays;
The
York
Morality Plays: The Castle of Perseverance c 1400;
Everyman
c 1509-19
Interludes: The Interlude of the Four P’s
John Heywood c 1545
Gorboduc Thos Sackville and Thos Norton 1561 (First English Tragedy)
Ralph Roister Doister Nicholas Udall 1541 (First English Comedy)
Some Shakespeare
These are our suggestions.
Othello
Mrs Coles
Antony and
Cleopatra Mr Hipperson
Henry
IV part II Mr Raudnitz
The
Tempest Mr Wood
Hamlet
Mrs Wells
King
Lear Ms Smedley
The
Merchant of Venice Mr Sherwin
Coriolanus
Mr Court
Macbeth
Mr Martens
Julius
Caesar Mr Davies
Twelfth
Night Miss Burden
Searchable
etext of Measure for Measure
Drama to 18C excluding Shakespeare
Those seeking to examine Shakespeare’s claim to fame, might well sample plays by his contemporaries. The briefest reading of Kyd will, by comparison, shed light on the excellence and subtlety of Shakespeare’s tragedies! On the other hand, Marlowe will repay closer study. The Revenge Plays of the 1600’s are exciting in themselves and contribute to an understanding of ‘Tragedy’ as a genre.18C manners and mores are in lively and ludicrous relief in the plays cited here.
Euphues John Lyly 1579
The Arraignment of Paris George Peele 1584
The Spanish
Tragedy Thomas Kyd 1592
Bongay
Frier Bacon and Frier Robert Greene 1594
The Tragical
history of Dr Faustus Christopher Marlowe(1564-93)
Edward II
Christopher Marlowe
Everyman
in his Humour 1596 Ben Jonson
Volpone
1605
The Alchemist1610
The White Devil
1612 John Webster
The Duchess of Malfi1614
The Changeling
1623 Thomas Middleton
Women Beware Women
The Country Wife 1675 William Wycherley
The
Way of the World 1700 William Congreve
She Stoops to Conquer
1773 Oliver Goldsmith
The Rivals 1775; The
School for Scandal 1777Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Modern Drama
Ibsen’s masterpiece A Doll’s House often appears on reading lists as the first modern drama. Playwrights such as Ibsen, Brecht, Miller, Eugene O’Neill and others have looked to develop the genre of tragedy in particular so that it reflects the modern experience. It is possible to view drama as the genre most of its time and these plays reflect the very strong links between contexts and texts
A Doll’s
House Henrik Ibsen
Miss Julie
August Stindberg
The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde
Pygmalion George
Bernard Shaw
Murder in the Cathedral TS Eliot
Mother Courage Bertolt Brecht
The Browning Version Terrence Rattigan
Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller
Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett
Look Back in Anger John Osbourne
The Birthday Party Harold Pinter
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Edward Albee
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Tom Stoppard
Equus Peter Shaffer
The Island Athol Fugard
Top Girls Caryl Churchill
Art Yasmina Reza
The History Boys Alan Bennett