The Norton anthology of drama

Introduction. Drama and theater

A short history of theater. Greek theater

Roman theater

Classical Indian theater

Classical Chinese theater

Classical Japanese theater

Medieval European theater

Theater in early modern Europe, 1500-1700

English theater, 1576-1642

Spanish theater, 1580-1700

French theater, 1630-1700

English theater, 1660-1700

Eighteenth-century theater

Romanticism and melodrama, 1800-1880

Modern theater, 1880-1945

Postwar theater, 1945-1970

Contemporary theater

Reading drama, imagining theater

The plays. Oedipus the King (ca. 430-425 B.C.E.) / Sophocles ; translated by Robert Fagles

Critical perspective: from Poetics / Aristotle

Medea (431 B.C.E.) / Euripides ; translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien

Lysistrata (411 B.C.E.) / Aristophanes ; translated by Jeffrey Henderson

The martyrdom of the holy virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena (Dulcitius) (ca. 975) / Hrotsvit of Gandersheim ; translated by Katharina M. Wilson

Snow in midsummer (13th century) / Guan Hanqing ; translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang

Atsumori (ca. 1400) / Zeami Motokiyo ; translated by Karen Brazell

Critical perspective: from "A mirror held to the flower" / Zeami Motokiyo

Everyman (ca. 1510) / anonymous

Critical perspective: from The English morality play : origins, history, and influence of a dramatic tradition / Robert Potter

Hamlet (1600-01) / William Shakespeare

Twelfth night; or, What you will (1600-01) / William Shakespeare

Critical perspective: from "Preface" to Dramatick works of William Shakespeare / Samuel Johnson

Tartuffe (1664) / Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) ; versification by Constance Congdon, from a translation by Virginia Scott

Miss Julie (1888) / August Strindberg ; translated by Evert Sprinchorn

A doll house (1879) / Henrik Ibsen ; translated by Brian Johnston and Rick Davis

Critical perspective: from The quintessence of Ibsenism / George Bernard Shaw

The importance of being Earnest / (1895) / Oscar Wilde

The cherry orchard (1904) / Anton Chekhov ; translated by Paul Schmidt

Trifles (1916) / Susan Glaspell

Six characters in search of an author (1921) / Luigi Pirandello ; translated by Eric Bentley

The hairy ape (1922) / Eugene O'Neill

Machinal (1928) / Sophie Treadwell

The good woman of Setzuan (1938-40) / Bertolt Brecht ; translated by Eric Bentley

A streetcar named desire (1947) / Tennessee Williams

Death of a salesman (1949) / Arthur Miller

Critical perspective: from "Tragedy and the common man" / Arthur Miller

Waiting for Godot (1953) / Samuel Beckett ; translated from the original French text by author

Critical perspective: from The theater of the absurd / Martin Esslin

A raisin in the sun (1959) / Lorraine Hansberry

The homecoming (1964) / Harold Pinter

Death and the king's horseman (1975) / Wole Soyinka

Cloud nine (1979) / Caryl Churchill

"MASTER HAROLD" ... and the boys (1982) / Athol Fugard

Fences (1985) / August Wilson

Critical perspective: from The ground on which I stand / August Wilson

M. Butterfly (1988) / David Henry Hwang

Angels in America, part I : Millennium approaches (1991) / Tony Kushner

The America play (1994) / Suzan-Lori Parks

How I learned to drive (1997) / Paula Vogel

Ruined (2009) / Lynn Nottage.