Audiobooks online: genre "Tragedy"

Hedda Gabler has just returned from her honeymoon. She has married out of ennui, and is already heartily sick of her husband, who is a plodding, pedantic academic. Upon moving into her new Christiania home, she soon discovers that Thea Elvsted, an old schoolmate whom she always e...

Two households, both alike in dignity,In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foesA pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life...

When We Dead Awaken (1899) is the last play by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Dreamlike and highly symbolic, the play charts the dissolution of sculptor Arnold Rubek's marriage to Maia, her flirtation with Ulfheim, and his involvement with the mysterious Irene, his former mode...

This drama was written in 1848 for the great French tragedienne, Rachel, by Eugene Scribe and his writing partner, Ernest Legouve. Scribe is remembered for devising the compositional technique now known as the “well-made play” that dominated play-writing for most of the 19th cent...

The apparent sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis by her own father Agamemnon was forestalled by the godness Artemis, who by an adroit sleight of hand that fooled all participants, substituted a deer for the daughter. Wafted magically away to the “Friendless Shores” of savage Tauris a...

In the court of Louis XIV, adaptations of Greek tragedies were very popular. This play, heavily influenced by Euripides' Hippolytus, deals with love that violates social taboos. Note: In Racine's work, a new "scene" begins whenever a character enters or exits. Therefore, there ar...

Titus Andronicus may be Shakespeare's earliest tragedy; it is believed to have been written in the early 1590s. It depicts a Roman general who is engaged in a cycle of revenge with his enemy Tamora, the Queen of the Goths. The play is by far Shakespeare's bloodiest work. It lost ...

Mother Elizabeth Sawyer is a poor, lonely, and unfairly ostracized old woman with nothing left to lose. Frank is a poor farmer who intends to marry his beloved Winnifred, who is pregnant with his child, but is pressured to marry Susan, the rich yeoman's daughter. Young Cuddy Bank...

Henrik Ibsen's 1894 play Little Eyolf tells the story of the Allmers family: the father, Alfred, his wife Rita, their crippled nine-year-old son Eyolf, and Alfred's sister Asta. As the play begins, Alfred has just gotten back from a trip to the mountains, and resolves ...

Women of Trachis (Ancient Greek: Τραχίνιαι, Trachiniai; also translated as The Trachiniae or The Trachinian Maidens) is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. The story begins with Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, relating the story of her early life and her plight adjusting to marri...

Romeo and Juliet is an early tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose "untimely deaths" ultimately unite their feuding households. The play has been highly praised by literary critics for its language and dramatic effect. It was among Shakes...

In accordance with the advice of the god Apollo, Orestes has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon at her hands. Despite Apollo’s earlier prophecy, Orestes finds himself tormented by Erinyes or Furies to the blood guilt stemming from his matri...